When two become one…there’s double the opportunity for clutter.
When this gal asked me to help organize her apartment so she could have enough room to bring her fiancee’s things in without living in clutter, I was honored and excited! Truth be told, this apartment is the top floor of the house she’s grown up in, so we are turning a little girl’s room into a grown up space for two.
I was so eager to get started that I only took three pictures. Ha! I didn’t even get pics of everything we organized- her room, bathroom, and a couple of different storage areas- all within just 4 hours.
The closet is immediately past the door when you enter the room. It kind of looks packed, right? It turns out, those bypass doors are a real problem. They were slightly stuck and just awkward. You can only ever see half of the closet at a time, so it always seems small.
We decided to stop fighting with the doors, and just take the doors off.
What we discovered is that there is more than enough room for all of her clothes and shoes, and enough room for him to move in!
The layout of the room worked for one, but it was going to be tough for two people to get in and out of bed.
We repositioned the bed against the only non-slanting wall, and put an unused desk into service as a second nightstand. Best of all, the laundry hamper has a great home, out of the way, but still easy to get to.
Funny story, the bed actually fell apart while we were moving it. If it couldn’t handle us, it wasn’t going to be able to handle newlyweds! She decided to purchase a new bed frame right away instead of waiting until after the wedding. We had a good chuckle over that one.
Those two gorgeous window seats were both blocked when we started. Now they are easy to get to, which will make putting up and operating new blinds easier. Even better, she can put some pillows, cushions, or even extra quilts in the bays and have some extra reading space.By decorating them, there’s much less chance that they’ll become clutter magnets.
She still gets to claim the top of the dresser for her girly stuff, but we contained it using things she already owned. A picnic silverware caddy is perfect for keeping hairbrushes and makeup brushes close at hand. The mason jar holding loose change is just out of sight. A soap dish holds lip gloss. Gonna need that for newlywed smooching.
Just outside her room, a very narrow bookshelf was trying it’s best to handle bathroom overflow items.
Folding is magical. I would dearly like to go back and refold everything PERFECTLY, but remember, we got a boatload of organizing done in just 4 hours, so I’ll take a deep breath and just be glad that we gave them all this extra storage. We decided that the sheets didn’t need to be accessed every day, so they could go into a storage closet. We got a little bit of real estate with bins that hang over the front just an inch or so, but that inch makes it all work! One bin holds extra hair products. One bin holds extra skincare. One bin holds all the other girly stuff we chicks need. And one bin holds cleaning supplies…didn’t really want to be looking at those, now did we? And a lot of stuff that was cluttering up a tiny bathroom is now stored here, but still within easy reach.
This room isn’t quite finished. We did some window shopping and made a shopping list, which Mr. Lapin is holding down for us.
Have you ever brought home an organizing doodad and not been able to figure out how to best use it? With most of our organizing jobs, we take note of the kinds of organizing supplies that our clients might need, and we email links to the exact product that will work in their space. This gal got a couple of pages of links to help her see exactly what we thought would work for her.
She was kind of amazed at the amount of space we opened up. She has a completely empty dresser drawer, tons of space in the closet, two completely empty drawers in the desk, all the under-bed space (once she gets a bed, lol), and even a bit of space in an adjacent storage room. All empty! All for her new husband! He reportedly only comes with two pair of pants and a handful of shirts, so this should be plenty of room for this minimalist couple.
Four hours. Four spaces organized. Two lovebirds. What could be better?
This was fun. In 1991 I married a most delightful man. We had two houses to combine into one. And four daughters who haud lots of stuff. We tried to consolidate but I had too much kitchen stuff and hubs hates giving stuff away. I wish I had your help then. But we managed. I do try to purge but have had little success. We continue to thrive but still have too much. The kids are out but house is full. One day………Thanks for your ideas.
Thanks for sharing your story. You are not alone!
Everytime I read great organizing stories like this it gives me ideas for my own organizing/storage needs. The part where you said something like “ever bring home a storage container and didn’t know what to do with it”, that would be me. So thanks for some great ideas.
You obviously have a great eye if you keep buying great organizing containers. Hopefully these stories and transformations that we share will continue to inspire you. Thanks for commenting.