Living in a small home #1

Yay...I've been wanting to do this post for a while:o) I LOVE seeing how others arrange, organize and decorate their homes--particularly small homes--so I wanted to share what we've done with ours. We're currently renting a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home. It's about 950 sq ft. Since we now have a little one on the way, it's become necessary for us to reorganize everything to make room for him. I also needed a workspace of my own--a place to pay bills, work at the computer, etc--so I wouldn't have to camp out on the couch or the dining table or (gasp!) in my bed anymore, often leaving piles of papers in all the places we need to use for other things!

About a year ago, I posted house pictures on my old blog. Here was my living room then (click to enlarge):

See that little dresser/table in the corner? I had to confiscate it to use in my bedroom as my nightstand. And the green braided rug? It was the unfortunate victim of our dog's puppyhood potty-training mishaps. When I could no longer combat its, um, "fragrance" with spot-cleaning, it earned an unceremonious trip to our curbside. (I bought that rug for my bedroom when I was fifteen! Poor thing.) Also, the throw pillows on the couch and the tablecloth have since joined the rug due to stains, general wear-and-tear, and in the case of the pillows, lumpiness from too many trips through the washer. (We must be hard on our things! Oh dear :-p )

On the other side of the fireplace was a refurbished dresser (without handles) holding dvds, games and misc. electronics. The TV sat on top facing the couch. Beside that, was our front door. I never liked that you used to walk into our house and see, first thing, the back of that TV.

So, I now happily present the new living room set-up:

This is what you see when you walk in our front door now: the couch sticks out into the middle of the room, facing the fireplace, instead of being placed flat against the wall, and the dresser lives in the corner instead of right inside the front door. (I still don't like that the TV is always sitting out, but it's the best we can do for now.) Thanks to my wonderful sister's Christmas gift to me, my dresser now has the glass handles I've been wanting for two years...yay!:o) We were also able to get the new rug and the green curtains over the sliding glass doors with Christmas money this year. (The curtains replaced some truly horrendous cheap plastic blinds that the landlord installed. They broke the very first time we tried to open them. I was SO happy to see them go!)

I'll post some more pictures in the next couple of posts, since for some reason blogger won't let me upload more than two pictures per post!