The Storage Wars of Small Spaces

There's an infamous east end Toronto house that has caught the eyes of passersby for years, and thanks to the Toronto Star last week I discovered that it's up for sale for the first time in over a decade!


Photos by Susan Pigg, Toronto Star

Look familiar? This eco-friendly abode is located on Coxwell Avenue and was created by architect Rohan Walters.

I'm not actually looking to move - as you may have gathered, I'm in no position to buy a home right now and I'm quite content in my little nook for the moment!

Nonetheless, I was thrilled to finally have a sneak peek inside this unique, three storey "Box House".

While it seems like a cool place to call home (and I'm sure it is!), really the square footage is no bigger than  your average downtown condos today at a mere 800 sq feet!

As is usually the case, small spaces like this one offer very little in the way of storage, and as many urban residents know, having a compact home can very much impact your everyday life.

The way you cook, the way you clean, how frequently you get to your pile of laundry, and how productive you are every morning as you get ready for work... all of these things are affected by how well (or how poorly) you organize the space you have to work with.

Now that MLo and I have painted a couple rooms and added a few more aesthetic touches to our apartment, I'm realizing that it just might be time to turn my focus (correction, some of my focus) towards organizing the storage spaces within our home...

Here are a few spots that I can't wait to spruce up that I think will really improve the functionality of the place and, more importantly, improve the way that we function in it!

• Under the bathroom sink
• My bedroom drawers
• Our entryway "closet" (aka a little corner with a shoe and coat rack that is out of sight thanks to a couple of trusty West Elm curtains!)
• Our kitchen "junk drawer"
• The one kitchen cupboard that has been taken hostage by millions of reusable grocery bags

What's on your short or long term organizational to do list? What have you done to make the most of your space? Do tell!

KLI

Battle of the Bathroom

Throwing a new coat of paint onto your walls is probably the easiest and most cost effective way to freshen up a space. For our ugly little bathroom this was the first "to do" on the list.

The only problem was that I greatly underestimated how much Marc would care about the paint colour and it took me a long, long time to wear him down... but wear him down I did! 

With relentless hinting, suggesting and prodding, I had secured free reign for myself and was given the green light from Marc (God love him) to pick whatever colour I wanted... little did he know, what I really wanted was a beautifully bright turquoise to liven up the joint!

After his prep and my two coats, the space already looked entirely different. I L-O-V-E-D it immediately but Marc was pretty much in shock, and it took these few further accessories and personal touches to help this new look slowly grow on him...

    BEFORE      

AFTER

(It looks more blue in photos but really the colour matches the turquoise from the diagram up top!)


Approximate Cost Breakdown:

2 Cans of Spray Paint........$17.92
Ikea FRÄCK Mirror............$12.99
Ikea Shower Curtain.........$14.99
Paint & Supplies..............$50.00
3 Printed Photos..............$0.57 
West Elm Ceramic Owl.......$9.71

TOTAL: Just $106.18!!!

Unfortunately there's not much we can do about the terrible lighting here but I for one thought this was a great and fairly inexpensive transformation for the time being!

Plus with a few more tweaks (faux-frosted glass, for example) it'll only get better from here :)

Have you ever had to fight for your design ideas? Would you have chosen such a bold colour? Do tell!

KLI

Fall Festivities

I've busted out my scarves, finally shut the windows and we've now had our first fire of the season to warm the place up... October has arrived!

Next weekend we have three, count 'em, three Thanksgiving dinners to attend and in no time at all it'll be Halloween. I was reminded of this while poking around West Elm (one of my favourite Sunday activities) and saw some of their awesome seasonal decorations...

I'm not sure what I'm up to this Halloween or if I'll even be dressing up, but I can say for damned sure that I'll be carving another pumpkin or two! 

Carving pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns is one of those silly little activities that I seem to put a lot of time and energy into, for no reason at all aside from my own entertainment. 

But what's not to like? You can get creative, get your hands dirty, and if nothing else, get delicious toasted pumpkin seeds out of it!

Last year I was inspired an old Sam Roberts Band t-shirt of mine and came up with this night owl... three hours of sketching, gutting and carving later, I thought it turned out pretty well! 

But now it's back to the drawing board... any ideas for this year's design? Will you bother busting out fake spider webs, skulls and the like? 

KLI