One of the many great things about living in a small house (besides the lower cost to buy, lower cost to furnish, lower cost to heat/cool/light) is that we use every single room of our house nearly every single day that we are home. There might be the rare Sunday in the summer when nobody enters my office but that is really the only exception I can think of. Every room needs to be used and most room need to have multiple purposes. It is the only way we can live in 1200 square feet (which, still, isn't that small of a house. When our house was built in the 1930s this was a much more typical house size).
There are some rooms that do more of the heavy lifting in this house. We have 8 rooms, not including the stairway or basement, and 3 in particular do A LOT for us. Our bedrooms are primarily for sleeping, storing clothes, and quiet time (Sam on weekdays and myself on weekends). The bathroom is used solely for bathroom-type purposes (besides the occasional parental hideout) and the kitchen is mostly kitchen purposes although, as most families know, that kitchen table can pull multiple duties (not just eating but homework and crafts too).
Our porch is fantastic but only useful about 2/3 of the year, pending weather. It's mostly used for porch-things (sitting, reading, enjoying the sunshine, great light for picture taking). It's the remaining three rooms of our house, covering about half our square footage, that pull most of their weight.
My Office
First up is my office. We designated a room off the front room as my office from the first time we went through our house. It has closets but no door, thus harder to make into a bedroom. It's not lost on me the great privilege it is that both Matt & myself have our own separate offices in our small space. This room not only holds my desk, computer, bookshelf (and a portion of my books), printer, file cabinet, etc. but also a HECK of a lot of storage is packed into the built in cabinets behind me as I type this.
Our coat closet is in here, even though it's almost as far as your can get from our most used door on this floor. That also means winter boots (when they aren't drying off) and winter gear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.). Also in that same cabinet are Sam's church picture books, the main set of crayons, and most of the coloring books. Coloring usually happens on the coffee table ~10 feet away so this is where they go.
We also store a variety of extra office/school supplies in here (I have a stash going on items that we will probably need on next year's supply list but was sold in too big of a quantity last year), cards waiting to be mailed, cards waiting on a recipient. Normal office things. As well as our DSLR, some school books for Sam, all of our out of season picture books (you have no idea the delight I experienced when I realized I could put those in the far back of the cabinet, using our ladder to get to, and just shuffle them out as needed. It's a glorious system that I am outgrowing too quick. They are barely noticeable from the ground.). I even snuck in some extra Christmas decor with all of my big bottle brush trees (truly an obsession) and a few other of my larger fake trees (mirrored and ceramic) stashed up there. There are few things more exciting than finding things to purge or rearrange thus freeing up new storage spaces. (And I KNOW I can fit at least a few more bottle brushes up there come November/December).
The other cabinet is slightly less exciting with the vacuum, rarely used iron & ironing board, and swiffer (as well as my color guard rifle & sabre! The boys are always entertained when I pull those out.). Up above is my decades in boxes, more office excess, and food trays and cupcake courier at the top since there is no space for them in the kitchen.
So besides office things we have cleaning supplies, coat room, and seasonal storage happening in here. This is the laziest of our 3 hard working room.
Front Room
Our front room is the central part of our house. We've called it the front room for 16 years and have no good reason for that other than it is in the front of our house. It's never been the living room or the family room because, really, it's so much more than either of those. It's always "the front room".
The boys each have a (messy) desk in the back of the room, more for storing their various treasures although Sam does sit at his sometimes. It's on my spring break project list to clean those up. There is also the buffet which holds out of season holiday kitchen towels & potholders (and I claim to be something of a minimalist...), decks of cards & card games, and candles. The bottom is almost entirely extra/out of season decor. I have a shelf for each non-Christmas season (really: February - May, summer, and September - November) and then extra flower pots and table cloths and all of my bridesmaid bouquets (those might move to our closet soon).
The dining table is mostly eaten at on the big holidays (Christmas morning, Easter morning) and when we have people over (although we mostly try to do that in the months it's nice enough to eat outside). I also do puzzles here occasionally and sometimes Luke does homework and it's constantly a staging place for things that need to leave the house (library books get stacked up the night before they are returned, etc.)
The front half of the front room really earns the room's hard working title. It's our main tv watching area (we have a second TV in the basement but it's mostly for Matt to watch while working out). I do my workouts here in the mornings (my weights for working out are under the bookshelf in my office) and we watch 95% of the tv we watch together here. It's also where I read during quiet time or when everyone else is out of the house, when it's too cold for the porch. AND it's the boys' primary play area. We do not have a toy room or play room or anything else of the sort. I am constantly asking the boys to get their Legos/army guys/whatever else, off the couch so I don't accidentally sit on them. MOST of Sam's non-stuffed animal toys (or outside toys) are stored in this room and it's where we do most of our playing when Luke's at school. Hot wheel tracks and Duplo building and so many games of Memory where he destroys me. It's primary non-Lego, non-stuffed animal, inside toy storage as well as, really, our only inside seating area for when guests are over. This room probably sees the most waking usage of any room in our house. Part family room, dining room, play room, tv room, and exercise space.
Matt's Office
The room that really takes the cake is Matt's office. The amount of function and storage we get out of this room is just astounding. It's Matt's office which means his computer and a bookshelf a whole cabinet dedicated to Lego storage on top and my excess books on bottom (I have books in every room of the house besides the bathroom and kitchen.). Then there is Luke's Lego Table which is self explanatory (another item on my to-clean-up-over-spring-break list). Usually Luke builds in here but when he plays Legos he often takes them to the couch. Then there is my reorganized craft storage. This huge white cabinet (that Matt built) holds all of my sewing supplies as well as wrapping paper, gift bags & tissue paper, craft supplies for the boys, some home decor (out of season books I covered), and a basket dedicated to items that need to be returned or given to someone else. I am often reconfiguring the baskets based on what I need storage for although many of them stay the same. (The picture is old but the organization is nearly the same, other than the addition of the Lego table next to the cart and most of that wrapping paper being used up.)
If we bought this house now and moved in with 2 kids, the way everything is arranged and organized now isn't necessarily the way we'd organize it all if we were starting from scratch but after 16 years of putting things where they fit, this is where we've ended up! Even just writing out this list gave me some ideas of things to maybe organize a bit differently! We definitely appreciate that while this house isn't big on space (and we'd LOVE another bathroom), we've still made it work for this long. There are countless benefits to small spaces and being able to say no to things "because we just don't have the room!" is one of them. We're forced to get a little creative and keep our possessions lower (although, to be clear, we still have A LOT of stuff) to make this house work for our family of 4.
Do you keep items in unusual spaces? Anyone else have towels co-mingling with puzzles co-mingling with a gift stash (really, that closet...blue ribbon). I'd to hear about unusual storage solutions that work for you!
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