An update from my last post: I forgot to mention that we have to replace the roof. (This was a known expense.) So while we’re doing that, we will be adding a skylight or two to the kitchen. I need to understand how the joists run to know if it will be one or two. Since I last wrote we’ve installed our teeny dishwasher and received our walnut table for the kitchen. It’s so pretty
Here’s a look into the messy middle. Lots of things are piled up and disorganized on temporary shelves. It’s not my favorite, but I’m so grateful to be here. If this is what it takes, I’ll take messy wire shelves over and over again.
The office
The office area is a pretty small space at the front of the house, west of the dining area. It’s portioned off by a wall with a cutout window in the middle of it. The only thing I’ve done with this area is pack it with books and plants.
What we plan to change in the short-ish term: I plan to pull the wall between the dining area and the office out and replace it with floor to ceiling open bookshelves. I think visually it will be so cool to see through to the kitchen and I love having all of my books out. When we replace the cabinets we will lose the bookshelves Josh installed, so all of my cookbooks can go here too. I’d also like to upgrade the desk, I have my eye on this one. Replace the boob light and curtains/rods.
The living room
(The previous owners used the office area as a living space and the open livingroom area as a bedroom.)
This is a long skinny space so furniture is a challenge and the heater sticking out of the wall doesn’t help. I’ve got an 8×10 rug in here and it’s absolutely the biggest I can go with without getting something custom-made. We haven’t done much to change the space other than move couches around many, many times and hang artwork. Our roof is slightly sloped and the ceiling follows it (I love that) so we found the tallest part of the room and put my biggest fiddle there. He’s adjusting well.
We opened up the wall behind our Frame tv to hide the wires. Josh got a large, in-wall box that will go behind the tv to hide all the wires and plugs currently on the floor. Gosh how lucky I am that he’s so handy.
Obviously the weirdest part of the living room is that laundry is sitting in the corner. We included our brand new washer and dryer with our sale and we’re definitely missing them. The set that came with this house works just fine, but gosh is it loud. I don’t think it will be too long until we upgrade.
What we plan to do in the short term:
I think the obvious answer here is build a closet around the laundry. We’ve already got the supplies waiting in the studio. We will utilize this whole corner and install floor to ceiling shelves for pantry storage. The closet will open with some sort of modern bifold doors that I’ve yet to source. (Ok, I did source some lovely walnut ones but they were wildly expensive…) I’ll also be swapping out the curtains with long, light filtering, natural-colored linen and upgrading the curtain rods to these walnut and brass ones. Same in the office. Replace the boob light. Find a different, narrow coffee table, perhaps a bench with a firm cushion so it doubles as a foot rest. (Don’t all coffee tables?)
What we plan to do in the medium term:
As I mentioned in my last post, the opening between the kitchen and the laundry area will move to where the wall heater is and the current opening will be closed up to accommodate a bank of cabinets in the kitchen. We will remove the heater and install mini splits. We were feeling more urgent about replacing the heater as we imaged it likely blew air and was loud, but it actually is just a giant radiator that doesn’t make any noise. So apart from being very not-cute, it gives us a little bit of time to get mini splits sorted out.
I’m on the lookout for the perfect couch. Ideally we’d have one with a chaise lounge. I love these wooden armchairs, but I’d also like something more comfortable. If we find a couch with a chaise, we will just have one arm chair, otherwise we will keep two.
The bathroom:
We haven’t done much to the bathroom yet, but we have several things either waiting for us to install or on their way. The bathroom might be the hugest challenge for storage in the whole house and something we feel like needs to be addressed asap. The shelves above the water heater hold a lot, but they are so deep and so high that they are hard to use for daily things. The pedestal sink does no favors with its lack of storage and counter space, plus it’s a couple of inches too short, so it’s really awkward to use. As you can see, I’ve shoved wooden crates everywhere I can to provide for some temporary storage. (But isn’t the stained glass door just the coolest?)
What we plan to do in the short term:
Install a new sink and cabinet and upgrade the faucet. I’ve ordered an unconventional cabinet to use in here that will provide storage (!!). I’m so excited about it. A cement vessel sink is on its way and I already have a beautiful unlaquered brass in-wall faucet ready to install. (Thank you forever, Josh.) We will replace the vanity mirror, lighting and all of the hardware too.
The hot water heater is using up SO much storage space and it’s reached the end of its life. Josh found an instant hot water heater that can be installed outside and buy us all of that space! We will install shelves upon shelves and I CANNOT wait to have storage in there!
I have a couple of lovely brass shelves to mount in the shower to hold shampoo bottles and a new brass toilet paper holder. We will replace the tall mirror (not pictured) with something bigger and upgrade all of the towel bars/hooks. The loud fan above the shower will be replaced with a quieter one that has a light in it. We will also add a skylight in here when the roof gets replaced.
In the medium-ish term I have some wall paper that I had planned to install in the airstream that will be great in here and I’d like to do something different with the floating shelf way at the top of the wall.
What we’d like to do in the long term:
This is an awkward space because you have to walk through the bathroom to get to our bedroom and the back patio doors. We’d like to rework the space to accommodate a walk in shower and a separate small soaking tub. The toilet needs an upgrade and I’d like to replace all of the tile.
The bedroom:
This is another long, skinny space that was added onto the house sometime after it was built. It’s been referred to as the garage, but I’m not sure it was ever used as a garage. The space is bookended by double doors. One set opens up to our small driveway and the other opens up to the back patio. Once we hung the curtains, the room took on a blanket fort feel. I love it, it feels so cozy, but also light and bright.
What we plan to do in the short term:
Build a closet! It won’t be a very big walk in closet but we will build a wall to partition off the driveway side of the room and install a pipe system for hanging clothes. I think I can get the dresser to fit somehow in the closet and I still need to come up with a plan for shoe storage. We’ve already pared down our clothing but still have a ways to go to make everything fit. We don’t have a coat closet so our coats will have to fit in here in the months we need access to them too. We will utilize the area under the bed for storage as much as possible.
Add different bedside lighting – either sconces or some kind of wall mounted lamp. Hang artwork above the bed. Hide the tv cords. And find light blocking curtains. The curtain rods I picked have double bars so they will go in front of the sheer curtains (which need to be hemmed).
In the medium term:
We are definitely tv in the bedroom people—I have the unfortunate habit of needing the tv on to fall asleep—so I’d like to upgrade our tv to a Frame tv which will sit closer to the wall and open up the narrow walkway a bit and display artwork too.
Build the dogs custom, stacking kennels to save space and look cuter. Install real flooring! This has gotten pushed back from an immediate plan as I just don’t care that much about the particle board floor and we have rugs down. Honestly, it looks a lot like cork flooring which isn’t my favorite, but is just totally fine and livable.
Put a hot tub on the back patio with a covered pergola because, duh, it’s the PNW and nothing is more cozy than a hot tub during a rainy winter.
And there you have our tiny 900 sq ft house! I know there’s a lot to change, but I already love it so much and everything is perfectly livable, with the exception of maybe the short pedestal sink in the bathroom! I find that with just the two of us and the dogs I don’t mind living in a much smaller space. It’s really all that we used in our GJ house anyway and it is SO much easier to clean/keep clean. We feel so very lucky!
