A Two-Click Tour

When we moved last summer, we shaved off about a third of the square footage we were use to living in.

We had a baby shortly after, and it turns out they require a lot of, you know, stuff. I'm no math genius but I'm pretty sure this equaled out to us losing about 99.9% of the space we had in our last house. 

There's a lot of really good reasons we did this that would take up their own post, so I'll save it for later. The point of this post is to celebrate that my husband and I are (ever so slowly) learning how to be small-space people. 

This has been huge for me. Mainly because I spend a vast majority of my time here. 

Here's what I've learned: 

Less Space = Less Stuff 

No, really. I say this because we "understood" before we moved that we'd have to get rid of a lot of stuff and even looked forward to de-cluttering, but we had no idea. 

There is some sort of therapy to giving away or selling everything you don't need, and then doing it again, and then again, and then one more time. Our definition of "what we need" has changed quite a bit. 

Best Be Organized 

Uhhhhh.... yeah. There's exactly this much room for disorganization. Unless you're cool with shoving over a pile of stuff every time you need to sit down. 

Also, it's not an "organize once and you're done" kind of thing. We've only been here half a year, so I still walk into the kitchen and rearrange every few weeks. It's all a matter of really figuring out how you live in your space. Which kind of leads me to my next point.... 

Think Marathon, Not Sprint

This is probably true for any home that has to be furnished/decorated on a budget. Few people have the moolah to finish their entire living space in a weekend. 

I've noticed this to be more true when we downsized. Example? Decor often needs to do double-duty. We don't really have the space for many things to be purely aesthetic... some things, but not many. 

This might be the hardest one for me, as having things constantly unfinished makes the little vein in my forehead pulse. Though after taking a few breathes, I've learned to appreciate the process. Something about taking your time settling in turns a house into a home. 

So, here's a few pics of where we're at in the process, hence the post title, because it felt like it only took a couple snaps of the camera to capture most of the place. Enjoy! (And understand that I do not claim to be an interior decorator.) 

The living room! Things still left to do: figure out what to do in the awkward wall spaces between the windows. So far the candle holders are what we've got. I'm thinking we'll take those down and put some paintings there. The couch is from ikea and doubles as a sleeper & the chaise portion has a huge storage compartment that holds blankets & sheets. The TV definitely had to go on the wall.

I feel like I could have gotten some better angles, but I kind of wanted to show the space that we had to work with, plus I'm no photographer. 

First half of kitchen. T.I.N.Y. That toaster oven is the next thing on our kill list. At our old place we actually didn't have a microwave so the toaster oven was more needed. I finally had to choose between that & the KitchenAid (who are we kidding, my KitchenAid is probably one of the few possessions I would take the time to save if our house was burning down) because counter space is pretty important to me. That coffee maker is also on our kill list and will hopefully be replaced by a much more sleek, no-plug-in-required, much-better-coffee-anyway, french press. 

Second half of kitchen. Why yes, that is the washer and dryer next to the fridge. This is where small-space living gets crazy. Originally, the fridge was on the other side of the kitchen, but that left roughly one square foot of counter space. So we got a stackable and scooted everything over. I'll be honest, the kitchen is the hardest thing to sacrifice space in. Who knew?

The awkward floating black square above the trash can is actually chalkboard wallpaper that serves as my menu planner. I am thinking about scavenging for an old picture frame (?) to put around it. We shall see. Either that or I'll remove it and the picture above it and use the space to hang my pots and pans in some cutesy way. 

For kicks and giggles, this is our AC unit cover that we use instead of our fridge for save-the-dates, notes, Christmas cards, etc. We find it interestingly cute & it makes our kitchen look a little cleaner to have a clear fridge.

Also, you get a pretty good view of the hilarious pinkish tan that the color we originally thought would be a more expected, brownish tan turned out to be. In our flurry to move in before Z came, we put it up on the wall and didn't have the time to repaint. So there it stays, until we're able to paint again. Reason #920534 to not remodel while you're eight and a half months pregnant.  

Favorite room in the house because it is the most finished, the guest bathroom/Z's bathroom. I chose the amazingly bright orange color myself. My husband made fun of me but I don't care because it makes me happy every time I walk in. 

Wanna guess where I found that fun shower curtain? BIG LOTS. Seriously, I underestimate that place. I wanted something  that would be cute for kids, but not covered in rubber ducks. 

The hallway that holds our china hutch that doubles as a bookshelf. This sucker is going to have to be baby-proofed very, very soon. 

Last, our dining room. The advent wreath is from Christmas, but I kept it there because I like how it looks. I have two antique typeface drawers that I'm thinking about hanging above the china hutch so that empty void of pinkish-tan will have something to break it up a bit.

The bedrooms I'll save for another post. Hope you enjoyed your tour!