Beauty From Chaos

ok, well maybe a small problem. Your apartment might not be as pretty as you would like. But you can fix that.

I have mentioned before that our apartment is a little storage challenged. We have one closet, and a lot of stuff that needs to be stored. Like clothes that my daughter outgrows, but I want to save for when we have another daughter, or all the stuff you need for a baby, but not a toddler. Not to mention drum equipment and craft supplies.

Sure, we could rent a storage unit, pay $20-$40+ a month to have a little less cluttered apartment. But that would be money out of our grocery budget.

So we’ve learned to maximize usable space. For instance, above the cabinets in our kitchen contains things we don’t use that often, like serving trays, the electric skillet and our food processor.

Under our bed hides all of the hardware for my husband’s drums (for those of you not married to a drummer hardware is all the stands- cymbal stands, drum throne[seat] kick petals etc), it also hides parts to the twin bed frame we have, some craft stuff and a box of memories.

But what I really want to make you notice is the usable space behind doors. Our bathroom door opens towards a corner, there is the perfect place to put the extra rolls of paper towels and toilet paper, the only time you see it is when you close the door.

My daughters room doesn’t have a closet, there just happens to be the most perfect spot behind her door. Just the right size for the boxes of clothes she has outgrown. Sure, it might not look too pretty, but the only time the door is ever closed is if she is sleeping, so no one sees them. When she is playing in there the door stays open and I watch her, so there is no chance of her pulling them down, plus the way the boxes stack it would be pretty much impossible for her to pull them down.

So if you have a lot of stuff, and no place to put it, look around your house for some usable space- avoid the storage unit fees!

Want more ideas? Check out other people’s Works For Me Wednesday posts!