450 Square Feet Part 1: The Closet

I wanted to show some details about how we're adjusting to living in our "teeny-tiny city apartment." In fact, I wanted to add a picture of the scene one day after move-in, but my cell phone apparently did not, as the picture has conveniently disappeared from its memory card, so I'll just describe it. One word: hoarders. Yes, it was that bad. Things were piled everywhere, we couldn't see the floor, we actually had to make paths to the front door, couch, etc. Here's what happened...

Before we moved, we lived in an apartment nearly twice the size of our current one. It was, of course, outside the city and not in a great neighborhood, and those are the two main reasons why we moved. But before we moved, we got down and dirty with clearing out most of our "stuff," because even though we already prided ourselves on not having a lot of unnecessary things, the reality was that we were facing cutting our living (and storage) space in half, so some additional downsizing needed to happen. And it did. And then we moved. And when all the furniture and all the boxes were finally transported from old place to new, WE COULDN'T SEE THE FLOOR. Gone was the pride we had shared for all the recently accomplished downsizing; instead, sheer horror took over at the sight of the grand mess that was now our new home. Ok, so maybe it wasn't hoarder-like, because we're not dirty and gross and we don't save trash (I looked up photos of hoarders' spaces on the web and realized that wasn't an accurate description), but it was packed to the brim. Just the thought of unpacking and trying to find room for everything was enough to give me anxiety. But eventually I got up the courage to dive in, broke up the task into multiple manageable parts, and over several days of unpacking after work and on the weekends, it was finally done. It took a couple of weeks, a lot more consolidating, and plenty of giving/selling/throwing things away before it was over.

I must have lost faith a dozen times during the process that all that stuff would ever actually fit somewhere, but eventually it did, and quite nicely too. Here's some pictures of our one and only closet and no, we don't have a basement storage space in the building, so this is it...EVERYTHING is in here. Or tucked under the bed (Dan's idea; I had forgotten about the wealth of space under there, having not utilized it since childhood). I'm really happy that we were able to get everything in there, especially since it looks so organized! Feel free to comment on your thoughts about my closet reveal, I'm a sucker for compliments (or complaints) and I'm pretty proud of my handiwork.

More pictures and stories later about how unpacking the kitchen went, including the storage (or lack thereof), countertop layout, "pantry" and more. In the meantime, I'll leave you with one thought to ponder: there are no drawers in the kitchen. None. Zero.