Small house thread - Page 33

[MPsSweetie]

How exciting! I can't wait to add on to our little house. As soon as we sell our other house we are adding a great room off the front, stepped down a few feet, with a huge wall of windows looking out. It will be 16x26ft or so, and will house our new living room on one side of the stairs leading down, and a small office, reading nook, homeschool supply area on the other. We also plan to build in as much storage under our house at the same time, but accessible from the addition, using cabinet doors. Hopefully that will be 4-6ft deep!! Our current living room/kitchen/dining area (11x24) will become the kitchen with an ISLAND!! and a dining room, looking down over the great room.
We are in the process of building on an small entryway/mudroom that will be where our new great dane will sleep during the winter, and a closet area where we hope to put our deep freezer, shelving, winter coats, outside stuff, etc.
This will make our house about 1350sqft (from 860sqft), which we think is perfect. Our bedrooms will still be small, but we spend almost all our time together in the living areas anyway.

I CANNOT wait!!

[sabrinat]

My latest project is to work on our outdoor space. We have a really nice covered patio that we are just not using. It needs some tlc. I'd love to hear suggestion for really doing up the outdoor space on a budget. I'm open to anything. I did get to 2 chairs the other day that one of my neighbors had on the curb. I'd love for it to extend the living area. It's a challenge because it is hot here much of the year and of course the bugs.

[littleplum]

:

[TopHat]

Hey all. We just bought a new bookcase and rearranged our studio apartment.

You can find pics (minus the bathroom) here http://s67.photobucket.com/albums/h2...Studio%20pics/

We also remeasured how much space we have. It's 495 sq feet.

[Pinoikoi]

Tophat! What a cute baby! Are those cloth diapers I spy in the colored bins? Also, the big white doors in the kitchen- are they the front doors or a pantry, closet? I like the arrangement!

[TopHat]

Thanks! We like to think she's cute, too. And yes those are cloth diapers in the bins. The doors in the kitchen are pantry doors. We are very lucky that we have so much counter and cabinet space and nice closets.
You can see the front door in the pic labeled, "from the kitchen."

[HeatherAtHome]

I'm so excited! I think I really, really will join this "club" soon. : I feel like we're going to buy a house at any moment. Made a bunch of phone calls this morning and just waiting for DH to wake up. (He works evenings/sleeps mornings & early aft)

The house we looked at must be under 1000 sq ft but feels ginormous! DH and I haven't had so much space since... ever! I've been living with my parents over a year now and he's renting a basement room/bachelor so that we could save some money and we've finally reached our goal.

I'll be posting plenty of pics eventually and we'll have plenty of reno projects. It's a cute country cottage/rambling farmhouse with the main part being 100 years old.

[littleplum]

Originally Posted by sabrinat

My latest project is to work on our outdoor space. We have a really nice covered patio that we are just not using. It needs some tlc. I'd love to hear suggestion for really doing up the outdoor space on a budget. I'm open to anything. I did get to 2 chairs the other day that one of my neighbors had on the curb. I'd love for it to extend the living area. It's a challenge because it is hot here much of the year and of course the bugs.

Do you have a handy hubby? Adding an outdoor ceiling fan (or two if it's a large space) would help with the heat a lot. It always feels cooler outdoors or in a room when the air is moving a bit.

Our neighbors have a carport attached to their garage and they have a picnic table set up out there, under a ceiling fan. I see them eating dinner outside a lot in the summer.

Outdoor living rooms are nice because you don't have to sweep and mop them. Just hose them off.

[wombatclay]

Heather- congrats and good luck!

TopHat- very neat, and can I say "wow" to how organized you are?

Sabrinat- do you need to work in privacy, or is the patio already pretty private? Our last house had a really nice little outside space but the neighbors looked right down on it. So I found some indoor/outdoor bamboo blinds (the "matchstick style") at Big Lots (I've seen them at IKEA and other discount places, and if you're willing to use the plastic versions the cost is usually under 20 dollars for the huge ones) and hung the blinds as movable screens. It made for a really neat look and gave us enough privacy to feel comfortable hanging out.

Since you already have a roof, the ceiling fans are a great idea. Or perhaps hang mosquito netting or screen from the ceiling down onto the ground and set up a standing fan. Or use canvas in the corners and go for a sort of British colonial look with the corners all swagged in the canvas (use painter drop clothes for cheap, nubby, weatherproof canvas) and netting between the corners keeping out the bugs. A perfect setting for tea or dinner!

Oh, one hot weather trick I saw was to poke little holes in a garden hose, attach the hose to the edge of the roof, and then run water through the hose to create a sort of mist. It drops the temp a surprising amount and feels wonderful on a super hot day but it does waste water (even with a recycler on the system) and it's not something you'd want running all the time. (there's a big camping event my family tries to attend every year and there are "mist tents" set up using these hoses all over to help people stay cool and hydrated.)

[TopHat]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

TopHat- very neat, and can I say "wow" to how organized you are?

Well, of course it was clean for the pictures! It's so not clean right now. I really have a hard time with keeping up with our dishes since we have to handwash them all. I've found that organizing books by color makes it look more organized- you can see that in the bookcase picture. And using baskets helps. Inside the baskets, it's a total mess, but from the outside it looks organized. I went to a thrift store and got some baskets for really cheap (50 cents to a dollar depending on the basket).

[wombatclay]

I do something similar to the baskets... but I often use those paper "gift bags". They're light enough that they can hang on the walls (in grad school I made big "murals" out of different colored bags), they come in all sorts of colors/pictures/sizes, and our local dollar store sells them 3 for a dollar. But it drives DH crazy since I'll do a quick sweep of a room and all of a sudden he can't find his "whatever it may be" since he doesn't know which bag it was put into.

[YummyYarnAddict]

I'd love to join in! I'm moving into an 850ish sft duplex with my two kids. It's a 2br/1.5ba that actually has a good layout with the 2 bedrooms and 1 full bathroom upstairs and the living room, kitchen and .5 bathroom downstairs and a basement. We're moving ... tomorrow! It's a huge downsize for me (from ~1800sft) so I have tons of stuff in storage and need to sort through and toss, toss, toss and have a huge yard sale and give away a bunch of stuff. However, the price is right and I know I don't NEED lots of inside space and this place has a large shared front and back yard. Once we're all moved, I'm going to have to do some painting (it's a huge priority) and figure out some other logistics.

[Juliacat]

Nice pics, TopHat! Very clever arrangement of space.

[momofmine]

using outdoor spaces

I also want to make more use out of outdoor living spaces. We have a really nice outdoor space, but it just looks kind of dumpy and we don't really USE it like I imagine we could.

We have a nice big deck, but it is long past the point of needing to be "sealed". The boards are kind of splintery in places and I'm always telling the kids to put on shoes on before they go outside. Is our only option to tear the thing off and build a new deck? Also, the deck is not covered, so I don't know what to put out there in terms of furniture and tables. Even when you put weatherproof stuff out there, like the plastic chairs, when it rains, the rain settles in the seat, and they just get so dirty that you have to wipe everything off before anyone can sit down out there.

Would there be a simple easy way to put a roof out there I wonder? We've got the mosquito issue too, especially this month, they are insane. You hardly want to be outside at all right now.

We also have what I think could be a really nice space a little further out in our yard from the deck, it's a stone patio area, with just a collection of differently shaped flat rocks, but again, I don't know what type of stuff to put out there because it is always exposed.

What kind of furniture and other stuff would you put out for a space that is exposed to the weather all the time? We have all 4 seasons, rain, snow, etc. The patio area would not be able to be covered, unless you put a freestanding tent of some sort, but somehow I think that would take away from the open feeling to it, because it is kind of in between two small buildings.

[momofmine]

Also, I want to use the outdoor space more for stuff like art, etc, so would you put some kind of weatherproof storage out there for that sort of thing? I had one of those plastic easels out there for a long time. I loved the idea of the kids painting and drawing outside, but again, because it isn't covered at all, it just got really dirty, and the holders at the bottoms (the wells that hold the paint, etc) would just fill with rain, etc). SO if they wanted to use it, it was a big ordeal to clean it up first.

Maybe I want things to be too easy! Maybe I need to change my perspective a bit and just incorporate cleaning up those things outside into my weekly cleaning routine. (or at least my imaginary weekly cleaning routine )

[sabrinat]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

Sabrinat- do you need to work in privacy, or is the patio already pretty private? Our last house had a really nice little outside space but the neighbors looked right down on it. So I found some indoor/outdoor bamboo blinds (the "matchstick style") at Big Lots (I've seen them at IKEA and other discount places, and if you're willing to use the plastic versions the cost is usually under 20 dollars for the huge ones) and hung the blinds as movable screens. It made for a really neat look and gave us enough privacy to feel comfortable hanging out.

Since you already have a roof, the ceiling fans are a great idea. Or perhaps hang mosquito netting or screen from the ceiling down onto the ground and set up a standing fan. Or use canvas in the corners and go for a sort of British colonial look with the corners all swagged in the canvas (use painter drop clothes for cheap, nubby, weatherproof canvas) and netting between the corners keeping out the bugs. A perfect setting for tea or dinner!

Oh, one hot weather trick I saw was to poke little holes in a garden hose, attach the hose to the edge of the roof, and then run water through the hose to create a sort of mist. It drops the temp a surprising amount and feels wonderful on a super hot day but it does waste water (even with a recycler on the system) and it's not something you'd want running all the time. (there's a big camping event my family tries to attend every year and there are "mist tents" set up using these hoses all over to help people stay cool and hydrated.)

Awesome! Awesome ideas! I'm going to head to big lots and this other place called Ollie's to see what I can find.

[wombatclay]

Deck past it's prime- well, before ripping out and starting over, can you try sanding it? Home Depot and Lowes often rent those big floor sanders and for a deck you certainly don't need to be an "expert" (floor sanders can cause uneven sanding if you don't do it right, but on a deck this wouldn't be as much of an issue as it would in a living room). Or a small deck you could even do with a hand belt sander (though it would take some time and not exactly fall into the "fun" category for me). You could also just do the edges and cover the center with an outdoor rug or other covering, or cover the whole thing with something more foot friendly (you know those bamboo blinds I mentioned? I put an extra down next to the girl's outdoor gravel/sand pit as a sort of ground cover... some plants have grown through it, but it's a nice compromise between hardscape and nothing).

Sun and bugs- well, there's the classic deck set with an umbrella. Or there are sun sails (fabric triangles that attach to the house and a freestanding pole) which you can buy or make. If you have the wood and craftiness you could build an arbor (attached to the house or free standing) and plant climbing vines on it or drape fabric through it to create shade and interest/privacy. If you have more money than time though you can go to a garden supply store, HD or Lowes, or even Big Lots and find those freestanding plant arbors (some are flat, traditionally put against the wall of a house for plants to climb, and some are actual arched arbors that are only a few feet "deep" designed to be an entrance to a garden or to cover a bench). You could line one or more sides of the deck with these and use them to anchor a ceiling of fabric, or to create privacy walls, or mark out space without affecting the open feel too much.

And carbon dioxide traps are pretty effective at bug trapping without being messy/dangerous to kiddos and pets.

furniture- do you have a hand drill? Or a hammer/nail? Poke holes through the seat of the chair or wherever the water gathers and the rain should just drain right through. My MIL stores cushions and other things that might stay squishy or get funky when wet in a tupperware type box under the patio table as well and then tosses the cushions onto chairs as necessary.

Crafts- we dug a hole, lined it with landscape fabric, edged it with split logs from a tree we took down, and filled it with sand and gravel. The girls love digging in it, the rain drains out quickly, and the bugs don't come up through the fabric. Plus the gravel discourages cats from making it their litter box. They also have a water play table. I don't really clean out the water table much... if I notice it's getting really nasty I may dump it, spray it with a little bleach water, or just leave it turned to the sun for sun bleaching. If it rains I sort of feel like it's a bonus since it fills on it's own! For actual "messy art play" maybe a few flowerpots (they drain on their own) to hold supplies and a few of the bigger flowerpots turned over to make fun kid sized seats? I guess it depends on what sort of art they like to do. Maybe water sensitive items could be kept inside by the door or in a waterproof tub by the play area?

[rightkindofme]

Phew. That took me a week to read. I read it in between going through my small house getting rid of stuff. I would say that y'all inspired me but I think it was incidental.

We have a little over 900 sq ft, I forget exactly how much. We have three bedrooms but one of them is pretty small. One bath and the bathroom is so small it makes me fussy. I hate that everyone has to follow me in there. I suppose I should be grateful because it is bigger than several of the bathrooms I've had in the past. At least I have a tub. : My kitchen could be remodeled to be decent but right now there isn't a huge amount of storage.

Right now I am going through everything because we are going to turn our two car garage into a playroom! : By we I mean a buddy of mine is going to come help me do the manual labor. I married a computer geek. He is the opposite of handy. I read about some of your husbands doing big house projects and I feel a great deal of envy. If something is going to get done in our house I have to do it. However this project has meant that I have had to go through all of the cr@p we stored in the garage. It's been a huge pain in the butt. Luckily we still have a storage shed in the backyard. It is now quite full.

When I finish cleaning up I'll put up pictures. I'm pretty happy with the way the inside of the house is turning out. Of course I'm not putting up work in progress--I'm not going to admit how bad it gets.

[momofmine]

wombatclay,
THANK YOU so much for all those great ideas! This kind of stuff just does not come naturally to me. I am not a designer. Thanks for the great suggestions!

[Stephenie]

I'm very happy I found this thread! : There are some really awesome posts here with great info and pics!

We recently moved into a small (750ish sf) duplex. Me, ds,dd,dh and two dogs. It's 2br 1ba. It's little, but laid out fairly well. Worst of it is the kitchen. We're still decluttering from our house... it was 1700 sf. We're doing really well, however and are down to one big closet full of boxes- the rest of the house is clutter free for the most part. Organised, no. Cute and homey, no. Clutter free though.

We're currently working on ways to decorate that are not only clutter friendly but toddler friendly. It's not easy, but we're having fun.