Small Spaces - Part 2 (Merrick)

In my last post about small spaces, I talked about how we made more storage space before the house was built. Today I want to talk about making more storage space after your house is built, because this is probably much more applicable to all of you.

When we bought our house, our laundry room looked like this (not the best picture, but it's the best that I have. Basically the room had one shelf and one hanger rod..that's it):


Today, it looks like this:





After three years of living in this condo, it was stuffed to the gills. With the addition of a baby, we just needed more storage space. We had hoped to sell our home before the baby came along, but when it didn't sell, we were forced to turn every bit of unused space into storage space.

We bought the materials at home depot, they cut all the boards for free, my dad drove up for the weekend, we borrowed a table saw, and I painted it with the free white touch-up paint that our builder gave us when we moved in. Now we have a customized laundry room, all for around $150.

By using all the empty and unused space above the washer and dryer, we now have a place to store all my paintings (of which there are a lot, as you can see), diapers, toilet paper, the sewing machine, laundry detergent, and bunch of other things that didn't have a home. Most of these used to sit on the floor, and there is nothing worse than watching your floor space shrink by the day as more things get stacked next to each other. So not only do you not lose square footage, you also increase the value of your home with off-the-ground storage space. Win-win.

Now, if you don't have a handy-man dad like me that can build an entire shelving unit from scratch, home depot has a lot of pre-made shelving units that pretty much only require a screwdriver and a hammer to install. IKEA also has complete storage systems, or even simple single shelves you can easily install and create extra storage space. And all of it is really pretty cheap.

Having a small space is no excuse not to be organized, have food storage, or have plenty of storage space. All it takes is a little creativity and a few nails.

Small Spaces (Merrick)

About two months before Philip and I got married, we bought our first home. It was a condo in an unfinished complex, and when we found it, the building was about four months from being completed. We purchased the two-bedroom condo, and would excitedly drive over once a week to see the progress. Our building is three stories, and as we visited the construction site, we realized that the workers always worked on the top floor first. From then on, we would scope out the condo's on the top floor, and then we would know what projects awaited our home the following week. This gave us a little advantage.

When we visited the third floor one day, we saw they were installing shelves in the bedroom closets. Upon seeing the layout of shelving, we decided they were wasting so much space and thought we could do better. Because our shelves wouldn't be installed for another week, we went home, designed a better shelving layout that used almost the exact same amount of wood, drew up a little picture, and then called the builder and asked if he could do our shelving layout instead of the generic one. Of course he said yes.

In our tiny condo we have very little storage space, but because of this easy adjustment, we nearly doubled our shelving space, and were now able to fit our dresser in the closet, which tripled our storage space. No extra cost, and no need to buy expensive shelving units.


Many people with small apartments or homes complain about the lack of storage space. But are they using their space the very best they can? Are they utilizing every inch of space? By simply asking our builder to make a small adjustment, we made the most out of our pretty average size closet. This is only one of the ways we have made the most of our small space. I'll show you a few more ways in the next post.

Until then, tell me a few ways you are frugally making the most of your space, whether big or small.