Author: Staci

It’s a little-known fact that a large proportion of city dwellers have a secret spot to stash a small percentage of their junk. Okay, this statement is more true in very dense places like New York City, Singapore, or Tokyo, but for us I think it will be a good solution for our peace-of-mind.

The apartment, while spacious, doesn’t have the kind of storage we had gotten used to (a garage and a basement for crying out loud!). We did get very creative as far as solutions go–we created a DIY sofa table to hide two monstrous speakers and barstools, we organized our bedroom closet like it was a high-stakes game of tetris, and used the white dresser in ingenious ways… it became media storage, office storage, linen storage, and more.

Hiding some larger items behind the sofa was one solution

All this junk tucked “in plain sight” was starting to wear on me and I thought it might be worth the peace of mind if we got some of it out of the way. That way the items that we did have up here in the apartment would have “breathing room” and the whole place would feel more peaceful. I know the obvious solution to my first-world problem would be to simply donate or trash the other items but don’t we all have some stuff that we feel like hanging onto but don’t want in plain sight? Since we hope to move to a much larger place (home, condo or townhouse) within a few years, I feel like storing some of this stuff will make sense in the “medium-run” (that’s somewhere between the short run and the long run).

Goals: 

1. To rid the living room of the brown wardrobe. It was exactly what we needed at our last place, where proper closets were lacking. In this place, however, we do not lack for hanging bar storage, and the wardrobe with its one shelf did not provide the right kind of storage for us. The dark brown mass also made the living room seem artificially small and closed-in. Goal: Accomplished! Wardrobe sold for $80 on Craigslist. 
2. To free myself of the over-the-door shoe hanger. To be honest, I do love it–but it makes it impossible to close the bedroom door. I have to sleep with the door closed at night or else I will worry that Mosey will roam the apartment leaving messes and chewed items in his wake (a bit of an unfounded fear, but tell that to me at 3AM). Goal: Under way. I’ll have to pick up an inexpensive shoe rack at Target or IKEA this week. 
3. To make better use of the bedroom closet shelf. This ties in with #1 and #2; I would like to move essential items to the closet and ensure they are easily accessible. Other non-essential items, like holiday decoration or equipment boxes (that we like to keep for when we move) can be tucked away but be ready when we need them. Goal: Accomplished! 

Here’s the little storage unit in all it’s glory! We left the right part free so we can stash our bikes when the weather gets warmer and we actually feel like using our balcony. Note what appears to be evidence of water there at the back. This is why we placed the durable plastic totes on the bottom–just in case our stuff gets its “feet wet.” The barstools and speakers pictured in the other photo above will make their way down here too, probably, or be moved into the bedroom closet now that a lot of space has been freed up in there. We have one more plastic tote that’s being loaded up which will go underneath the big suitcase in the foreground.

I kind of feel like a cheater since I’m trying to inspire apartment dwellers to “work with what ya got,” but this solution, made available to us through our complex, makes sense for us right now.

Overall, I know we’re probably overpaying for the amount of space we’re getting, but if it helps me feel less antsy about moving again (which we don’t really want to do when the lease is up in September) then it’s worth it. The apartment already feels larger, even if it’s kind of crazytown in here. I gave you two sneak peeks last week and we haven’t even gotten around to rearranging the furniture yet since I was knocked out by a cold this weekend. All in due time, friends!