Our last house was small. Not small by Manhattan standards, but small for middle-America suburb standards. It was also oddly laid out. Our bedroom had a HUGE closet. There was not a linen closet (it could be there was no coat closet … after a short sidebar we cannot agree what the original purpose of the hallway closet was). Regardless, we lived there five years and I loved that tiny house. We’d still be there if tiny people did not come with so many things.
Yes, we chose those colors. On purpose. The house was “harvest gold”, the porch was “avocado” and the trim was white. We were kickin it old school. I loved these colors on that house.
One of the things we did in that house, and have subsequently done in this house, is hang shelving in the stairwell to the basement on the highest part of the wall. In our old house the lowest shelves were 4″ boards and the highest (the ones you could not, would not, bang your head on) were 10″ deep. The lowest ones ran at least three feet, from the start of the stairwell until the slanted wall ended the run. We stored CDs, DVDs and books there. In this house, we have the similar shelves but this time with adjustable mounting and all the shelves are 6″ deep. It made for relatively easily accessible storage in an otherwise unused space.
Our ottoman has always doubled as a toy box. Whoever decided to cut open ottomans and make them hold stuff, brilliant!
Elliot’s first big boy bed was a captain’s bed. With a baby on the way and a 12′ x 12′ room for them to share there was no space for an extra dresser. Also, he was able to get his own clothes at an early age because he could see in all his drawers. In their shared room we mounted a shelving unit to the wall so that larger toys could store under it, against the wall. Elliot could reach toys and books on the two lowest shelves. The very top held the radio, clock and things that I needed within reach with the baby.
Since we didn’t have a coat closet we had a coat hook at the front door. Once Elliot could help take off his own coat, we hung a second, smaller coat hook at his level on the same wall. It was both necessary (there were only 4 hooks on the large coat rack – I wasn’t wasting one on him) and it helped him begin to be more independent.
I look around our house now and it lacks that innovativeness. This house is bigger so I don’t have to be creative with my stuff storage. For me, having the need to make things useful drove my design. I was tickled (really? tickled? that’s all the better I could come up with?) when our house was on the market and one potential buyer said she’d want all the furnishings too because they went so well in the house. I think that might be part of my problem in this house. I still like what I liked there. This space is bigger, more sprawling. The scale is completely different and I haven’t caught up yet.
