Transformations

I haven't written in a long time! It's nice to be back, and to have fun things to write about! Since we are expecting our first child this fall, we've decided to make some significant changes to our condo in order to prepare. This has meant moving things into a storage unit, selling other items, making a few trips to Goodwill, and investing in smart furniture purchases!

We started downstairs in the living room, where we previously had a couch and loveseat set taking up pretty much the entire space. While we really like these pieces, we wanted a couch that could convert into a bed for guests, so that we don't have to use the nursery as a guest room. Well, Ikea is brilliant. They make a sofa bed that is not like a traditional pull out couch. It is an L shaped sofa, with a section that pops up to turn the entire thing into a double bed! Plus the chaise section lifts up for storage! It is such a great piece that increases our options, gives us more floor space, and also provides storage!

Here's the before of our living room:

And after: 

And here is what the couch looks like as a bed: 

Image from Ikea.com. Moheda Sofa Bed.

Other changes are happening upstairs, where we are converting the former French guest bedroom into a nursery. We put the queen bed into our storage unit, and then puchased an Ikea daybed with a trundle and 3 huge drawers for storage. With the daybed up against the wall, there is now tons of floor space for our little one to play! And I really can't emphasize how huge these drawers are. The storage is going to be great! The bed is quite comfortable too (I'm lounging on it as I type!). 

BEFORE: 

This was actually my childhood bedroom!

AFTER: 

The bed is Hemnes from Ikea. We hired professional furniture assemblers to put it together- well worth it! 

I haven't bought a quilt for it yet, since I'm not sure what the color scheme for the nursery will be. We will find out the gender at our mid-pregnancy ultrasound, and then the decorating will continue! 

One more DIY project I've got going on is transforming the bookcase into a closet. To get an idea of how it would look, I've already emptied out the top half, purchased a tension rod from Target, and some of those cute little baby hangers. I think I'm going to really like this! I'll put baskets on the shelf below to hold additional items. The books will be packed up for the storage unit! 

And that's it for the transformations at this point! I know I'll enjoy doing little bits over the next few months. In the meantime, I'm really enjoying our new items!

Little changes add up!

It's a little early, but we seem to have Spring Cleaning Fever around here. There are lots of changes underway, mostly because we finally caved and purchased a small storage unit to hold our seasonal and bulk items (such as the keyboard, the Christmas trees, etc.). I think I've been very creative with storage in this place (we only have TWO closets- no linen or coat closet, no pantry, just two in each bedroom). But the additional space of the storage unit will be a big help, especially since I LOVE decorating for Christmas and take up a lot of space just with my holiday boxes! 

Anyway, as we were getting things ready to go to the unit, we started questioning and reorganizing everything left behind as well. One example is the dining room. Here is a picture of the dining room the week we moved in: 

The "Before" pic taken the week we moved in. My table never looks this empty nowadays!

Our condo first floor is open concept, so the living, dining and kitchen are all together. It felt most natural to have the table in this direction because then everyone seated could feel that openness into the living room. There wasn't room for anything else though, and I had always kind of wanted a buffet in the dining room. Someplace where we could put extra dishes, and that could also serve as storage for my many table linens, candles, etc. 

Here is what we are testing out now. I haven't really tried to style it at all, we are simply testing out the flow and the feel of having the table turned in the other direction. 

The "After" pic. It's in B&W because I took it last night and the color photo looked so dark! 

It's not a dramatic change, but it opens up enough space for a small buffet, which I love. Sometimes small changes can make a big difference! I won't commit to it until we've lived with it awhile, which is a good rule with layout changes. You have to grow out of the discomfort that comes from it being different to really see if you like it sometimes!

There will be more little changes coming as the decluttering and reorganizing continues! Stay tuned. =)

Decluttering Tips for the Sentimental Saver and Multi-Mover

I really should be embarrassed to put this on the Internet. However, I must believe that the majority of human beings are not incredible cleaning machines like my mom and granny, and that some of us struggle with the inevitable accumulation of stuff. Try moving once a year for four years, inheriting all of your husband's junk, cleaning out both of your childhood bedrooms, and then see if you too aren't guilty of just shoving bags into secret places where they never need to be dealt with. Oh and did I forget to mention starting new jobs/grad programs? It's exhausting!

One of my resolutions for the New Year (yes, back in January) was to declutter and finally go through all the stuff that I never had time to look at after we moved and I quickly started back at grad school. Even when I made this resolution, I knew I wouldn't really have the time until after graduation and summer travel plans. So, here at last, I can officially announce my great loss:

My donation items all lined up and ready to leave my house for good!

Here are some tips that helped me out along the way:

1. Make a plan. I started by listing all the things that I needed to go through. Old school papers. My enormous bag collection. Clothes. Shoes. Random under-the-bed boxes. The list helped keep me organized and moving forward.

2. Work in chunks. I learned quickly that if I tried to work on an entire room, I would actually create a bigger mess. While I would be getting rid of stuff, I would have to place items that needed a new home all over the bed. Then when I was done sorting through I'd be too tired to clean up my homeless items. My new strategy? Go through one bag/box/area, and when you are done clean up everything you've decided to keep before moving on. This helped a ton.

3. Create the assembly line of sorting! When I was going through my purses and bags, most of which were holding old school papers and teaching supplies, I set up three bags: one for trash, one for recycling, and one for donation. Then, all the items I was saving were placed to the side and given new homes once the sorting was complete. It keeps the process moving quickly and gives you less time to think on each item.

4. Ask the right question. I used to sort through my clothes and ask myself if I could or would wear a particular item again. Now I don't ask if I will wear it in the next year, I ask if I have worn it in the past year.  If the answer is no, toss it in the donation bag. I tended to do this with furniture as well. I thought it'd be nice to have that futon in the future when we live in a house and have a basement and might need an extra bed for all of our guests. But right now? We live in a two bedroom in the DC suburbs with no plans to purchase a house. Why hold on to something that just takes up space, simply because I might use it in the future?

5. Have a give-away party with the girls. This happens so much with my group, that I assume that it's normal. We are all similarly sized, though we all look quite different ('Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' truths), at least enough to rummage through each other's old clothes. It's fun to see your old items start an exciting new life, and also to feel like you are keeping your old favorites in the family! It helps that we are all young professionals/students who won't pass up free stuff!

6. Lose the weight- donate! You'll feel great about having a cleaner, less cluttered space, and you'll also feel good knowing that your clean, gently used items (please don't drop unsellable trash off to those sweet Goodwill workers) are going to a good cause.

7. Repeat. So while I'd like to think that I've fixed my cluttering situation once and for all, I know this is a process that I will have to repeat frequently (All the moms out there- I can hear your "Wait until you have kids" reaction from this side of the monitor!). I think the most important thing is finding a system that works for you and doing it often. Let's hope we are all on the way to a cleaner space. And maybe just for today, I can pretend that I did take after my mother and that it was always that way, after all! ;-)

Decluttering the Bathroom: Continued.

I finally figured it out! While I did like the white pails I was previously using as storage in my small bathroom, they just didn't look quite right with the rest of the bathroom decor. Fortunately, I figured out that I could use my Pottery Barn small wire baskets (previously used in the kitchen)

It's nice to get those frequently used items off of the tiny counter top, and yet still keep them within reach. I hung them just to the side of the mirror, between the mirror and the etagere. In other news, why is it so hard to take a good picture of the bathroom without having something unwanted show up in the mirror? Perhaps I'll master a good shot by the time I'm done with this room! 

Small wire baskets and 3M hooks add easy storage!

This is how we do it (sort laundry, that is).

Part of living in the DC area means settling for less space. With no linen closet, no coat closet on our first level (seriously, who designed this place?!), and no separate laundry room, we have no choice but to be creative when it comes to storage.

Our stacked washer and dryer are tucked away in our kitchen, and whatever left over space we had there we used to set up a pantry (did I forget to mention that we also don't have one of those?). I've always liked the idea of having a separate laundry basket for each type of load, like the ones you see on pinterest, where the baskets hang neatly in a corner of a laundry room the size of a small bedroom. Maybe one day....but for now I make due with a complete under the bed laundry sorting system.

Using large under-the-bed Savannah baskets from Pottery Barn, I can easily separate my dirty clothes into lights, darks, whites, and delicates. Then, when a basket is full, it's easy to carry it downstairs and throw into the wash. When I'm done, the clothes fold right back up into the basket for easy transfer to my upstairs closet.

Easy to sort and then hide away! Savannah underbed baskets start at $24 for the small size, Potterybarn.com

For those of us who live in small spaces, we understand that floor space is valuable retail. Using a larger hamper cuts into that, and you still have to sort through everything to separate your loads. This under the bed sorting has proven to be a great system for me. And maybe one day, I'll hang my baskets in a glorious, dedicated laundry room.

My ensemble of baskets! 

Decluttering: The Bathroom

The journey continues, as I strive to achieve my New Year's goal of decluttering. I really want to find some way to get things off of the counter around our small bathroom sink. Here's what I came up with today:

"Brush" holds toothbrushes and toothpaste; "Wash" is for facial and hand soap (also currently holding contact solution). 

It isn't quite there yet; the look of the pails isn't exactly what I was going for yet. The pails and letters actually came from my office, which I had to clean out after graduation. I will continue to work on this, but for now at least my counters are clear! 

I'm back!

After a hiatus, I'm excited to get back to sharing my decorating ideas. It's Christmas now, which means there are so many wonderful ways to decorate. But before I get into that, I want to share some of what I've been doing at our new home (we moved over the summer to the greater DC area). I adore our new home, and particularly enjoy the abundance of trees in this area. Here are a few of my favorite things!

We have so many books, so I gathered up some of the classic and foreign language books we own and used them to decoratively flank the fireplace. 

I love having a patio and a balcony in our new townhome. I went with neutrals after all, and purchased this five piece set for a hugely discounted price at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Great place to sit out!

We don't have a linen closet, so I bought these decorative baskets from Target and a cheap black coffee table from Walmart to create a place to store our linens at the top of the first set of stairs. 

I've started a Rustic Country Pinterest board as well! Follow along by clicking on the Pinterest link to the right!