Adding on Rooms DIY

"What?!?" you say.  "I thought this was all about living well in the space you already have!  I live in an apartment--I can't add on!"

Oh, but you can, my friend.  In a sense.

If you ever come over to dinner, my hubby will give you an entertaining tour.  It starts with the "foyer" (Ha!  That would be the rug in front of the door...) and ends with the "Master Bedroom" where apparently "the magic happens."  But I'll spare you that.

Yes, living in a small space requires a sense of humor and creativity when giving the grand tour.  We have a "map room," "library," "china room," and "formal dining room" all within the 10' x 10' space that houses two bookshelves and our dining room table.  Miraculously, the nook that holds the washer and dryer also contains the "game room" (shelf with boardgames), "cat room" (litterbox, food and water dishes), and "tool shed" (shelf with a toolbox).  It gets more wonderfully and ridiculously grandiose everytime he gives the tour.  

But what about actually carving out space for a new baby, home office, craft corner, etc.?  For my new office, it was amazing what we managed to pull off with some bookshelves, an IKEA folding desk, a file cabinet, a folding screen, and some "L" brackets...

Basically, we took over 20 square feet from the existing dining room area, and partitioned it off with two bookshelves.  We moved the two existing tall bookshelves (remember the library and the china room?) out of the back corners of the dining room and set them at right angles to the side walls, about two feet away from the back wall and three feet apart.  The handy hubby anchored them into the wall with the "L" brackets for safety, and voila!  I had a little nook of my very own.  The backs of the bookshelves are now my "walls", upon which I put some pegboards and pictures.  

We then squeezed tall bookshelf in, perpendicular to the back wall, on one side, and a short bookshelf with a little file cabinet on top, on the other side.  On the back wall (the real structural one), opposite my open "doorway" between the two shelves that face into the dining room, we installed a drop down IKEA desk (actually a dinette) that I can fold down out of the way to allow access to my tall bookshelf.  As a finishing touch, a friend gave us a folding screen that I can use to block the open "doorway," allowing me to shut my work from view come dinnertime (since the dining room table is about a foot away from all this ingenuity.

It's tiny, and certainly doesn't have much room to maneuver.  But it's mine (no more squabbling with the hubby about who gets what shelf space in our current office nook or in the living room), and it really does feel like another room... ish.  :)

I would think something like this would also work well for partioning off the back of a bedroom for a nursery area (make sure those shelves are really well anchored into the wall!), or part of a living room for a craft area, etc.  It makes the existing room that much smaller, but I've noticed that unless things get partioned off, they migrate into the main areas, anyway (remember Rules to Live By #5.  When things don't have a home, they get everywhere).  

Nook Sweet Nook, I say.  Just don't try to come visit me in my office. There's only room for one of us in there!   

Rules to Live By #5: Compartmentalize, compartmentalize, compartmentalize.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Happy Gilmore is when he's trying to learn how to putt and it's going badly. After several desperate attempts, he kneels down and screams at the golf ball, "Why won't you go to your home? Are you too good for your home?!?" Mayhem and hilarity ensue.

Whenever I see clutter around our house (does it breed when we turn the lights out?), that's what I find myself saying--"Go to your home!" I've found that if everybody has an easily accessible home, then instead of just dropping the hammer, pencil, remote, etc. wherever, there is a better chance that we'll put it back neatly where it belongs.

I think a fancy-schmancy garage with lots of storage space (what is this "storage space" of which you speak?) has a lot for a small home dweller to learn from, despite the dissimilarities in size. Particularly, the tool part of the garage. Because most people want to leave room for their cars, there can be some great examples of Rules to Live By #2: Think vertically as well as compartmentalization. I love the pegboard tool holder. Especially when it has outlines drawn on it to show which tool goes where. It looks a bit like a crime scene for a tool mass murderer, but it sure is handy to have all the tools laid out where they're easy to get to, with all their little homes, but vertically, so they don't make a large "footprint."

We have lots of hooks all over the place for hanging flashlights, keys, ponytail holders, potholders, etc. This means that they don't just get tossed anywhere and then get lost. No outlines, just hung in specific places (the potholders over the stove) that make sense and in some sort of order for multiple items (the flashlights in descending order, largest to smallest). Especially since we have very little drawer space, this is great.

But what to do with the drawers we do have? How to keep them from getting cluttered and useless? It's really frustrating to have to rummage through a drawer for 5 minutes just looking for the can-opener. The answer I've found is lots of smaller trays. Most people have a silverware divider that keeps the spoons from fraternizing with the forks. I like to apply this to other drawers, and shelves as well.

They have clever subdividers in stores that expand and lock into place to keep your kitchen utensil drawer in neat segments. They're expensive, however, and I've found that the shallow plastic trays that you can get at the dollar store and other chain stores (for pretty cheap) work well, too. And there's an actual bonus that you can pull out one subdivided section to get to one that is further back, somewhat like the way the top part of a handheld toolbox comes out to reveal the space beneath. This makes it nice to have homes for the less-used gadgets and such that are still easily accessible. A drawer within a drawer, if you will.

There is a caution I've found in subdividing, and that is not to go too crazy. Some personalities may be different, but I can get overwhelmed by too much subdividing if I can't remember where things are supposed to go. If the spaghetti holder, the spatula, the whisk, etc. etc. all have their own homes, it might work, but it might also get confusing. I like to group like items and let them hang out together. What would be an easy way to split up kitchen utensils to narrow down the choices when it comes time to fish something out? A good way to categorize could be bladed/sharp (can opener, veggie peeler, cheese grater--a bit dangerous but well-organized) vs. "heavy" (rolling pin, meat tenderizer, potato masher, etc.). Or, if your utensils--like ours--were added over time and don't all match, categorize them by material (metal utensils vs. plastic. ), color or even brand.

The point is to find what works for you and this may take quite a bit of experimenting. Try one way of compartmentalizing a kitchen drawer. Be faithful to use that system for a week. If at the end of the week, it's still driving you nuts and doesn't seem to be helping, try something else. Eventually, you'll find a system that is easy to use, efficient, and keeps the utensils from getting all tangled up. It's amazing how a whisk, a potato masher and a spaghetti scoop can all form a new creature that is of no use and keeps the drawer from closing!

Give everybody a nice home and be diligent to help them get back there after they get used. Clutter, be gone!