This guy in Hong Kong claims he fit 20 rooms into a 350-square-foot apartment. He does it with moving walls that expand the space you’re using and minimizes the space you don’t need at the moment. Unfortunately, this isn’t a viable option for our tiny new place, but it’s cool to watch.
Currently reading: “Small Space Solutions” by Libby Langdon, and six other books like it. Apparently, there exist at least seven books just about how to organize a small apartment. Seven! I was shocked that there was even one.
We had about 100 old magazines laying around our apartment. These have all been accumulated in the last year.
Zach saves them “in case he ever reads them again.” I save them for the recipes inside. Since we have all the extra space in our current apartment, I never minded keeping them in the office. But we’re not moving them.
To save the recipes but dispose of the magazines (don’t worry; I recycled) I tore out every recipe, put them in page protectors and put them in binders. To save money, I tried last year just using a three hole punch, but the pages don’t stay in, and I found I never opened the binder — and therefore never used it — because it was too hard to keep in order.
So this time around I did it right. I finished it about a week ago and so far use the books a ton. We’ll see if it sticks. But it took a ton of time, and I spent more than I wanted to on the page protectors. At first I thought I’d only need 100 (about $7 at Target). No. Try 500.
I had one binder lying around the house, and Zach picked up the other (giant) one at work because they didn’t want it anymore.
Since cooking is my only really hobby, and I’m an organizational nut, I’m glad I did it this way. Not sure if it would be worth the time and effort for most people.
Audrie’s recipes, volumes 1 and 2:
If you didn’t already know this, Zach and I are moving in oh, about seven weeks.
Up until — today, I guess, it felt like it was going to be forever until we left to go back to school. For some reason today is when the switch flipped from dear-god-mid-August-is-never-going-to-come to oh-my-god-I-only-have-50-days-for-a-million-things-to-go-right.
Moving always sucks, but Zach and I are moving from a two-story, four-bedroom apartment to a tiiiiiiny one-bedroom. The cost is about the same.
What did we do with four bedrooms? We used one to sleep in, one as a dining room, one as a guest room and one as an office. There was also a living room, a huge kitchen and tons of closets. The new place has one closet. And it’s not very big.
On top of that, I hate clutter and disorganization. So we have a lot to do. Also, we have no money, so everything we do has to be cheap or free.
Witness project one: a cabinet that the former owner’s of Zach’s mom’s house left in the basement. I wish I had a before picture. I fixed it up this weekend. It was dark brown (not because of the wood — that was the color of paint) with scratches all over it, obviously. It had no handles. One leg was shorter than the other (something I haven’t fixed — we will just have to prop it up with something).
Since our bathroom will be a decent size, we’ll use this to store towels, toilet paper, etc.
See how nice it looks?
I really wanted a lighter green, but this color was on clearance for $2.89 a quart, which was just enough for the piece. I got the knobs at a decor store in Atlanta in May. They were 75 percent off, so $2.50 each (Can you believe they were originally priced at $10 each??? For cabinet knobs???)
Tonight Zach and I cleaned out a dresser at his mom’s house full of junk from his childhood that somehow survived a move from Atlanta to Lafayette, Ind. Treasures we found:
In case you can’t see it that clearly, he’s holding a white T-shirt with the words “My owl” painted above a red blob with a big green smile. He and his mother didn’t have an explanation. There were also quite a few T-shirts he had made himself in high school by silkscreening some sports-related or inside joke image. This is obviously one of his earlier works.
More is sure to come with the upcoming move. I’ll keep you posted on the ridiculous crap Zach’s managed to acquire and then move from apartment to apartment.
