Getting Organized

From the day we moved into our current house, Sara and I have remarked that the floor plan is not ideal for a family with young children. We live in a "loft-style townhome". It is three stories, with two bedrooms on the top floor and one bedroom on the bottom floor. One of the bedrooms upstairs is the master, the other is a loft (one side of the room is open to the living room below). Since we want the nursery to be quiet, even when people are working in the kitchen or watching TV, the loft seems like a bad choice. The remaining option, is the room on the bottom floor, so this is where we are putting the nursery.

Of course, the room for the nursery is not sitting empty right now. It has been Sara's craft room and office since we moved into this house. So this past week we purchased some new furniture, and some new shelving, and are basically putting everything from Sara's office into the loft. Now the loft will be a shared office space for Sara and myself. But, to make this work, we need to get super organized in order to fit two rooms worth of stuff into one room.

This is why I'm greatful that we live near an Ikea and a Container Store. Ikea has all kinds of inexpensive bookshelves, desks, etc. And the Container Store has the Elfa shelving system which has given us a ton of storage space in an otherwise normal closet. But enough of the advertisement...

To make this work (and because I'm a little too organized sometimes), I needed a drawing of the room layout with all of the new furniture. Here's what I came up with (yes, the drawing is to scale, and yes I'm a dork, and yes I'm proud of it!):
So I spent most of my winter break executing this new setup. The new shelving is installed in the closet, the new desks are setup and functional, and the new bookcase is already holding books. Now we have enough storage space to move stuff from Sara's old office up to the loft. So, um, if anyone wants to help carry stuff just swing on by :-)

The fun stuff (painting the nursery, hanging the Classic Pooh border, etc) should be started by the end of January. So stay tuned for more details about our house reorganization. And Happy New Year to everyone!