Here is my Sunday quote a day late again. Blogging for 31 days is NOT easy! As for the rest of this week, I don’t even know what’s going to happen, but I still have a lot to share about Hope for the Little Home. So stick with me because I’ll get through this series one way or another.

Here is a cool quote that goes along with my topic.

I talked about how we downsized our living room and cut back to just one couch for seating. Today I am just going to briefly share how we did the same thing with the nursery.

This was our son Z’s nursery and that’s not even half of it!

This is Ezie nursery.

The room is about 5×9 and as I said a couple days ago it does not have a door or a closet. If you lift up the crib skirt you will find some storage though. In fact if you look under anything in our apartment you will “find storage”.

There is a story behind this nursery set that I wanted to share. Every time we have had a need in the midst of these challenging times the Lord has always provided and it’s come together even when things look bleak. Last year when I was pregnant my friend sent me a message on Facebook asking if we needed crib bedding because she had a friend that was giving her set away. I said yes and shipped it from Atlanta along with this painted canvas. Everything was hand made, which I love and makes it all the more special. You have no idea what this meant to me as a pregnant woman that was dealing with guilt because I was so focused on my daughters diagnosis, therapy, surgery and everything else. I felt like I wasn’t able to give much attention to the baby on the way and I certainly didn’t have the means to do much, but our Father made sure he was taken care of. It’s something simple and it’s not even a necessity, but it means a lot to me. This is just another example of how we’ve found hope in our little home!

If you are just joining us the rest of the series can be found HERE!

So the past couple days I talked about how we transformed our dining room area into more usable kitchen space. So where did the dining room go? I am all about eating meals together as a family so don’t think that the dining room got trumped altogether. No.

We were pleased to have found a gem of a table at a flea market right before we moved in.

The dining set and the time that we crossed it’s path couldn’t have been more perfect.

These pictures were taken on my phone (before we changed the floors out or had any other furniture moved in.)

This 5 piece set can fold up like this,

or as a half table/desk,

or a dining table for 4 (we have an extra chair).

It slides around easily and we’ve seated up to 7 people around it using the coffee table as a bench!

We usually have it as a half table next to the couch,

but if we want more space we’ll just move it to the middle of the living room. Or when we want it completely out of the way, like we did for the party last week, we just fold it all up and move it out.

I love this table and even though I had a heck of a time figuring out what it was called I think I finally discovered it’s name. The Linon Space Saver 5 Piece Dining Set.

The new ones run about $330 dollars (ours was $100). We like vintage stuff so it fits our eclectic decor anyway. Yea, yippee skippee for us. Who wants to come over for dinner?

The rest of the series can be found here.

Before we moved into our apartment J was hard at work, along with the help of my sister in law and brother who also graciously allowed us to use their garage.

He made several pieces of furniture that would extend the counter tops of our itty bitty kitchen and, as I said yesterday, double the space. The original kitchen ends where the light flooring begins. 

The first piece is a cutting board counter top (much like the one he made for our last kitchen) which has a space for the trash can, and shelves for some of my kitchen items.

The second piece is something J just found at a thrift store and it adds more drawers and countertop.

The third piece is my favorite and it’s a really long table with open shelving underneath that makes me feel like I am in a William Sonoma kitchen.

Above that is an Ikea shelf

Lastly, next to that is a closet with a water heater in it which we use for a pantry. That project was just as simple as picking up some shelves at the thrift store and hanging a light in there.

Sure the kitchen appliances are dated and the open shelving is sometimes a pain with curious little ones that like to bang on things, but it actually hasn’t been bad at all. I really like this kitchen and it has challenged me to make the most of where we are and focus on what is important. It may not be my dream kitchen, but it’s perfect for the season we are in. Maybe you find yourself in a “transition” season as well and I hope these posts can encourage and inspire you.

“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Phillipians 4:11

When we moved into our apartment the kitchen was tiny. I am talkin’ about giving the yellow polkadot bikini some competition in the itsy bitsy teenie weenie contest.  We had a small refrigerator next to an old stove on one side and a sink and dishwasher on the other side. That was it.
. 

Don’t let the photograph fool you, where the floor changes is where the apartment kitchen ended. That arrow is pointing to some drawers that we brought in.When we moved there were only 4 drawers total in the entire kitchen and they are so small that you cannot fit a flatware tray in one. Not even a European style Ikea one! So we had to cut one up to fit it in the drawer.

See, that’s SMALL. I thought about doing a photo comparison of the kitchen we left in our last house, but I didn’t want this post to be too depressing. However, if you want to see what we are downsizing from I do have pictures (or even a video) on here and it was lovely.

I am fine with keeping things simple though. I don’t need an extravagant decked out kitchen to provide some wholesome, delectable, decent meals for my family of 5, but more than two feet of counter space is preferred. So J and I decided to take a look at our floor plan and think outside of the box a little.

On a side note I stated earlier in this series that we had a 2 bedroom apartment. The den/office doesn’t have a door on it or a closet, in fact it’s the size of a walk in closet. I just wanted to clarify in case it looked like I gave false information. 

I went through all of my phone photos from since we moved in, and this is just a little taste of some of the creations that have come out of our apartment kitchen.

and these are some of the people that I have to share it with.

That is why expanding our kitchen was so important. So much so that it will take a second post to talk about all the details. I’ll pick this back up tomorrow when we go from the kitchen that I loathed to a kitchen that I love.

Back in June I did a blog post titled “Apartment Hunters” where I did an HGTV style review of each of the apartments we looked at. Our first choice was the one with the hardwood floors. Not just because they are cute and stylish, but because the messy mom has three very messy kids and I know carpet wouldn’t stand a chance with us.

In the end though we were not able to get our first choice apartment, but it’s okay because our second choice was actually a little bit more spacious believe it or not. Playing the hand we were dealt we were determined to make this space work for us. We signed a lease on a carpeted apartment and that was that. Except, when my husband has his mind set on something you can’t hold him back.

J making a digital floor plan on in the carpeted apartment when we first signed.

A little research, some grunt work, and BAM!

Well, first of all we talked to our Land Lords before we started and assured them nothing permanent was taking place and they’ve seen it, so we’re good. We didn’t “install” anything, we just more or less laid a floor on top of a floor. We found the hardwood for our space from Lumber Liquidators and it was 39 cents a square foot. If you keep your eye on it you can find deals like that frequently.

I’ll tell you right now, it didn’t all go as planned. If you have a low profile carpet such as berber you can lay the laminate flooring right on top. If you have a higher profile carpet that is plush and padded (like we do) you need to lay a solid surface down to make it firm. We learned this the hard way.

After J spent a full day and a sleepless night measuring, cutting, and laying the floor down it ended up being way too “spongy” because of the carpeting. It felt like walking in a bounce house or something and J was worried that it would put too much stress on the flooring and cause the joints to snap. So we pulled it all up and put down a particle board plywood called OSB, which J got from Home Depot for about $6 a sheet. Then we relaid all the flooring.The next issue was making the sure the floor wasn’t too high or else the front door wouldn’t be able to open. So we left more relief in that area, by spacing our plywood strategically to have more give in certain areas.

I wasn’t planning on a full blown tutorial for this so I didn’t take many pictures of the process, but here is a picture that shows the three types of flooring.

More importantly here is the video that J went off of for this little home improvement. This tutorial is great if you have a firmer floor to begin with, if not then take my advice and add the extra step of laying down something like OSB.

If I would have been stuck with the light colored carpet in the dining area, I would have made it work because that’s my life’s theme right now (make it work), but having this wipeable surface is just one less thing for me to worry about. I am extremely grateful and I’ve been very happy with the results.

For more information about how this project turned out and a time lapse video of the entire floor removal process then check out Part Two HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. For the rest of the 31 day series click HERE.

I planned on posting a quote and picture on Sundays because it would be so easy and I wouldn’t get behind, but here I am on Monday afternoon doing my “Sunday quote”. Anyway, here is some food for thought when it comes to living in a little home and what I felt like was a corresponding picture of SJ.

I have good days and bad, but I can honestly say that right now I feel 100% satisfied. Thank you Jesus. My heart is full.

This post is a part of 31 day series about downsizing. Check out the other posts here.

Ahhhh, I already missed my first day of the 31 day challenge. I figured it would happen, just not so soon! It’s okay though, my baby’s first birthday party is a really good excuse and I don’t regret focusing on that all day yesterday.

The party does kind of tie in to today’s topic though, because I was going to blog about our hideaway coffee table and when we had 10 more people in our apartment last night we “hid it”.

Having a coffee table isn’t necessary, but they are nice to have for popcorn, laptops, or my favorite- a place to prop your feet up!

 However, when you are limited to a small space they can be inconvenient to have in the middle of your room. That is why my husband J designed this media table.

He built the coffee table a while back, and when we found out we would be moving to an apartment he made the table as a way to conceal the coffee table when not in use.

Now you see it

Now you don’t

I’ve wanted to show off J’s carpentry for a long time now, but I realize it might not be that helpful to other people living in small spaces since building your own furtniture isn’t the most practical tip.

 There are plenty of other options though. Having an ottoman is great because you can use it for seating or as a table. There are also less worry when your toddler bangs their head on it. Getting a coffee table that has storage space is great too because small spaces never have too much of that, right?

What does your family use for a coffee table?

Today I am going to talk about how we downsized our living room.

Our old living room was a nice size and I am sure we’ll go back to something like this again someday because I love to entertain, but who knew we could be comfortable with so much less.  We sold most of the stuff in this picture at “the world’s longest yard sale” and we narrowed it down to just a single couch for living room seating.

Here is our living room now. We also added a TV media table and coffee table. You may not notice the coffee table, but it’s there. I will be talking about that tomorrow. For now lets get back to the couch.

This raggedy old couch has been with J since before we were married. He got it from a yard sale when he was in college. Who knows how old it is, but it’s held up. We even hauled it out to a field for a photo shoot in 2011.

It has a basic slipcover on it now, which we used to dress it up a bit when we were selling our house, but it’s still the same piece of junk it’s always been. We talk about replacing it. I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but we will probably shed a little bitter sweet tear when it does.

With the kids being so young all five of us can sit on it. And if we don’t feel like being that snuggly or we have company then we can use the chairs from the table setting.

It’s as simple as simplifying. You would be surprised at how little you need.

For links to the rest of this series A Lot of Hope in A Little Home click HERE.