Creative Thinking = Accidental Organizing
A couple of years ago, a friend tried to give me an unused wine rack she had been storing in her daughter’s garage. Since I live in a small space and have never been much of a drinker, I turned down the offer.
Last last summer, though, when the tree hiding the parking lot next door got cut down, I had to find a way to block the pavement and vehicles from my view. I asked if the wine rack was still on offer, et voilà! Problem solved.
.
.
Miraculously, the wine rack also went a long way towards preventing the once-a-year bird/bat kill that usually happens on the balcony.
Of course, I didn’t want the thing to get wrecked when the snow came, so it had to come inside for the winter. This is how, by accident, it became a food pantry in one of the hall closets:
.
.
I use the wine-holding section at the bottom to hold rolled-up cloth shopping bags.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen to this organizing system come spring. We’ve gotten used to the pantry here in the Treehouse, but I will want to shield the parking lot from my view again once the weather gets nicer.
.
Speaking of closets, remember the crate playhouse I lovingly made for those household felines? Yeah, cats suck rocks. After a couple of weeks of watching them ignore it and refuse to use it, I told them, “To hell with you!” And I absconded with it for some more organizing in the Treehouse. Using it, and a second white-painted crate, I found the answer to the problem of the pile of shoes at the bottom of my bedroom closet.
.
.
Incidentally, painting the insides of your closets is a great trick for making you want to keep them organized. Other solutions I had to get creative about were the putting drawer-liner-covered cardboard boxes on the shelf, utilizing lots of hooks (three more hiding inside the closet) to prevent me from otherwise dropping my clothes on the floor, and a making space for a wicker hamper to do double-duty as an afghan-covered cat bed – because they’ll sleep in the closet anyway – so my skirts won’t end up covered in cat hair.
.
Still, since I have a fairly ordinary small space closet, there isn’t a lot of room in there for my girly shit, like accessories. One day, though, during my thrift spelunking adventures, I found a gorgeous picture frame made of glass, mirror, and wood, with a $4 price tag on it.
I felt kind of bad when the ladies at the Catholic-run second-hand store thought I was purchasing it for the hideous print of the Last Supper that was inside it. (It wasn’t even da Vinci! It was some random artist who copied it!) I don’t know what became of the print, but I left it outside the dumpster in case anyone wanted to give it a home.
Is it sacrilege, to leave Jesus by a dumpster?
.
.
(Seriously, can you imagine that turned sideways, with a bad copy of The Last Supper in there? Viva Las Jesus.)
With the addition of some hooks and pushpins, I had myself a nicely organized accessories “closet”….
.
.
….that remains hidden behind the bedroom door until I need it.
.
.
I think organizing small spaces is a lot like playing Tetris. You just have to figure out how to make the pieces fit.
If you are a small space dweller yourself, or just want something a little different from the typical decorating and organizing sites, I highly recommend perusing the Apartment Therapy blog.
.
Dodie Goldney
Back to Top | Home | Audio | Video | About
related posts by Dodie Goldney:
Kali the Destroyer: Cereal Killer Version
.
The Treehouse by Dodie Goldney 