Making the most of a small house, Ikea style
 

Well, the new addition to the family is coming soon. Unfortunately, our two bedroom house is full of stuff right now...including our second bedroom, which is eventually going to be the nursery. At the beginning of this project, it was half full of my wife's sewing and craft stuff, which needed to be moved. (the other half has my hobby stuff, which will be dealt with later) We didn't have any easy places to move it to, however--it is a small house. We had three options:

1. Get rid of the craft stuff (unacceptable)
2. Box up the craft stuff and put it in storage (undesirable)
3. Be creative! :thumbsup:

Since we have a carport, we never ever (ever ever ever) use our front door. In fact, our front hall looked like this:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50208_0017.jpg

We saw some potential to repurpose this space, so we cleared it out:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50208_0018.jpg

We took some measurements and headed to Ikea. First order of business, hide the front door:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0006.jpg

We found a cool desk with a pull-out L-extention that exactly fits the space:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0007.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0008.jpg

A railed storage system will be a good use of space for items that need to be frequently accessed:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0009.jpg

There was 8" left over, so we bought an 8" wide shelf that was supposed to be for CD's...I was so happy our measurements were accurate!

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0013.jpg

Sewing stuff starts to get transfered...

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50708_0004.jpg

We decide it needs more light, and a power strip. A trip to Wal-Mart for parts (we repurposed the lights from the old craft room)

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50708_0019.jpg

And, tada! A fully functional craft room in a space once devoted completely to a litter box and some junk.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50708_0021.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50708_0022.jpg

Hopefully this inspires someone to make the most of the space they have! It was definitely a very satistfying weekend project, and my wife is ecstatic...she says it's the best craft space she's ever had. That's good enough for me to call it a success! :thumbsup:

Wow, and it's lovely, too! Nice job.

How cool. What a cozy little space :)

This makes me want to make the 2 hour drive to the Nearest IKEA.... too bad I couldn't just ship everything from one I'm going to drive by today....


Very very nice job - probably one of the best maximizations i've seen in those houses.

really nice work. will there be the possibility for natural light from the front door?

Yeah, definitely! The screens are pretty transluscent, as you can see here:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...50408_0008.jpg

and during the day, they definitely let in enough light through the window to work by....which is great, cuz I LOVE natural light!

pretty cool....

I just dislike blocking emergency exits, but I'm sure there is another exit like a window nearby in case of fire.

How do guests come in? How does the Jehovah Witnesses knock on your door? What about FedEx and Chinese food deliveries?

Not bad! 10 points for very creative use of space. 3 points for using glowing balls without looking gay.

One question: where has whiskers' crate been moved?

Her first craft project was a sign saying "please use other door" with an arrow

As for emergency exits, due to our floor plan, we still have two doors accessible from everywhere that used to have three. (the bedrooms still have their windows, also)

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6923/escapedh2.gif
(incidently our house is 1048 square feet...wow, i never realized it was that small!)

Also, the desk is on sliders, and the screens are on rollers...if we needed to for some reason, we can move the desk out a foot and slide the screens, and still open the door.

They had to figure out how to operate the flap, for smell control issues, but we just tucked it in the back corner under the desk

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6508/catboxba2.jpg

Well done.

Excellent. I am quite impressed.

This is a great use of space.