Small Apartment, Big Makeover

Several years ago, I moved to Vancouver to live with my boyfriend (who is now my husband). Before I could make myself at home, I had to do something about this:

And this…..

No joke. These are completely real, unstaged photos of what Mr. M’s old bachelor apartment looked like before he met me. Pretty scary, huh? I admit that the suitcases on the floor are mine, but everything else, well… That had Mr. M’s name written all over it.

You may wonder why I didn’t run from this chaos. Aside from the fact that Mr. M is a pretty great guy, I also relished the challenge of decluttering and prettifying this place.

With a flick of the magic wand, here’s how it turned out… (Oh, hey - recognize that old gray Lack table on the bottom left?)

And another wave…

Tell me that the new look didn’t feel completely zen! I’ll give you a tour, shall I?

My husband’s old apartment was TINY! I don’t know how much square footage it was, but my professional opinion is that this space would have felt a lot bigger if it was just a studio and not sectioned off into a one-bedroom. Here is the kitchen as we stood in the living room. Small living room with an even smaller kitchen.

The Before image is of the wall at the end of the hallway. The After photo displays Mr. M’s travel magnet collection more prominently than just stuck onto a magnetic whiteboard. (See “Entry” photo below.)

This is the same hallway looking in the other direction towards the living room.

As a bachelor living alone, Mr. M pushed his bed up against the corner of the bedroom. It wasn’t a bad idea because this room was probably the size the of a dorm room. However, two people sharing one bed cannot sleep in a bed that is pushed into a corner, so I had to make a few adjustments to the rest of the room in order to gain access to the bed on two sides. I always wanted to replace the Venetian blinds with roman shades, but I never got around to it.

Part of the reconfiguration included moving out this GIANT armoire. Personally, I thought the wardrobe was a bad purchase because it was 24″ deep in order to accommodate hanging space on one side, but the other side was too deep for folded clothes. Things easily got lost in the back. However, I didn’t know Mr. M back then and he was reluctant to give up the armoire.

So I relocated it to the front entry in order to tidy up this mess. There’s Mr. M’s travel magnet collection in the Before photo before I made a DIY project out of it. (See photo of “Hallway Looking In” above.)

Back in the bedroom…. I moved out a bookcase (that basically did nothing except hold more clutter) and removed the bifold closet door that was broken and had been leaning pathetically against the side wall. Who says you need doors for every closet? In a space as tiny as ours, it was better to just hang a fabric curtain. This also added a nice softness to the room. One of my pet peeves about basic builder homes is that they never hang the closet rods at a good height. In the Before picture, you can see there are two shelves, yet only one has a rod for clothing. In order for me to use this closet to fit my clothes, I went out to Home Depot to buy a wire wardrobe shelf and hung it at a double hang height. This doubled our hanging space: Mr. M’s clothes went on top and mine went on the bottom. Much more space efficient!

This is the last vignette of the tour. Mr. M bought this iMac because his friend said it was a good deal (off Craigslist), but in reality, he didn’t need it because he has a Macbook. Since desktops are out of style, Mr. M couldn’t resell this computer anymore and we had to make it work in our space for the time being. I got rid of the Ikea desk that he wasn’t using and propped everything onto a bookshelf to neatly tuck things out of the way.

Clearly, the bulk of this project was clearing out the clutter. I was quite the tyrant about it, if you must know. My husband likes to put things wherever he sees an empty space. I like to group like items with like items in the room or area where its function is designated. Hence, the meaning of organization. Currently, in our new house, I still see his lesson plans (he’s a teacher) sitting on the shelves of our living room bookcases. It’s a hard habit to break, I know.

After I pulled video games out of kitchen cabinets and threw out a bunch of papers and stuff he wasn’t using anymore, I was able to make things purty-purty. On a weekend when Mr. M went out of town, I painted the green accent walls in the living room, hung up the drapes, painted the black and white artwork in the living room, put things back in a tidy manner, and curated the bookshelves as best I could. It was a lot of work for one person, but I got the bulk of it done by the end of the weekend. In my eyes, the apartment was still too cluttered - especially along the hallway - but I’m glad we no longer live in that tiny space. Although, I must admit that this was one of the biggest positive changes I’ve ever made in any interior space. Ever.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

 

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