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Today I am so delighted to be able to to take you on a little house tour today… and when I say little house tour, I mean just that. My house is little. There will be no McMansions on this tour.
But just because our house is small, doesn’t mean that it can’t be beautiful! Sure, small spaces can be a challenge, but they also lend themselves to feeling naturally cozy and home-y, and that is perfectly fine by me!
We live in a three bedroom townhouse that is around 1300-ish square feet, and while it is a lot roomier than the one bedroom apartment that Donnie and I lived in when we first got married, it is definitely not large by any stretch of the imagination. But don’t take my word for it– come on in and see for yourself!
I actually did a post recently with all of my tips for getting organized when you live in a small house, so today’s tour will be more pretty pictures and pointing out features that have made our small spaces more efficient.
One common thread in many smaller homes is that one space ends up serving multiple purposes. Our entryway and kitchen, for example, are really one area that we’ve separated into two distinct zones with furniture placement and accessories.
(In this shot you can see our kitchen sideboard peeking out… it really is just right next to the entryway!)
A small kitchen is almost a given in a small house, and ours is no different. It was also an ugly and out of date kitchen until last summer/fall when we gutted nearly everything and put in brand new cabinets, countertops, sink, faucet, and backsplash.
{Utensil Holder, Hexagon Tray, Cake Stand, Pitcher, Stool, Rug}
I recently did an entire post about how we organize our small kitchen, and while it is a challenge, it is definitely not impossible!
{Utensil Holder, Hexagon Tray, Pitcher, Flower Pot}
Many times in a small house, you have to get creative. I struggled with our teeny tiny pantry for years. It barely held anything, and no matter how many times I organized it, it always seemed to end up a mess because there was simply not enough room to hold everything we needed. When we renovated the kitchen, then, we decided to do a swap. We moved the pantry to our front closet, which was bigger and just a few steps away…
{Kitchen Aid, Containers, Spice Jars}
…and we turned the old teeny tiny pantry into a mini mudroom to hold a few coats and bags.
The rest of our coats hang in a little nook in the basem*nt, which is perfect since we almost always come in through the garage anyway. One of the biggest things I’ve learned from living in a small house is that you don’t have to follow the house’s “rules”– just because the house “says” that something is a coat closet, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work better as the pantry! 🙂
Our main living areais another example of an area where we’ve made multiple “rooms” out of one big space. It houses our dining area, living room space, and space for the Cs’ toys, and again, we’ve used furniture placement and accessory choices to divide the room into these three zones.
Our little dining room is up first. I recently switched aroundalmost all of the art in our main living space (and when I say “I,” I mean that I decided where they would go and Donnie hung them because he is the best ever 😉 ), and my 2 DIY “In Christ Alone” canvases migrated over to the dining areafrom the living room.
I love decorating my grandmother’s hutch for all occasions… especially when blue and aqua are involved. 🙂
You can see the couch peeking out in the bottom left corner of this shot. It acts as our divider to split the living and dining areas.
I try to keep the furniture minimal in this space so it doesn’t feel over crowded. I actually have a chair that I’ve been meaning to reupholster for, oh, over a year now (Oops!) that will go where the yellow and gray chair is. Maybe I will get around to that eventually! 🙂
This is the third gallery wall I’ve put on the big living room wall in 3 months. Maybe this one will stay for a while… I know Donnie is rooting for it so he doesn’t have to move more frames around! 🙂It is actually an outside wall, but the builders decided not to put a window on it, and I so wish they had!
Finally, the Cs’ toys also reside in this space, and because of that, I purge them often! We would easily be overrun by toys if we kept everything they brought in the house, and even with all of my purging, I still feel like they’re everywhere sometimes!
{Storage Unit, Bins (Similar), Bookplates, Chair, Tool Bench, Floating Shelves}
One of my biggest mistakes when we first moved into the house was to paint all of the walls dark colors. Small house + dark walls = cave-like feeling! Ick. We’ve gradually painted all of them lighter, and I think it feels much more serene… like in our master bedroom, for example:
{Floral Pillow, Aqua Pillows, Bedding, Lamp, Headboard, Board and Batten}
Our vanity and sink is actually in our bedroom rather than in the bathroom part of the master suite, but framing in the mirror and painting the builder grade vanity helped make it less of an eyesore.
And though our closet is fairly small to be used by two people, putting in a closet system rather than using the single bar and shelf it came with made a huge difference for our clothes organization.
The Cs share a room, and they actually love it… most days. 🙂
To maximize space in their room, we tried to go vertical as much as possible… with the bunk beds, the toy storage…
…and even their little art station.
Finally, my favorite room in our house and the lastone in our small house tour…
My home office + craft space! When the Cs moved into the same room, I got the 3rd bedroom as my girly workspace, and I absolutely love it. I have my simple desk area where I work on projects and stage photos.
Andlots of storage! Again, we tried to go vertical and use the wall space as efficiently as possible since this room is not large.
{Silhouette, Laminator, Baskets (similar), Bins, Bookshelves, Cube Unit}
We recently gave the closet a little refresh, too, so that it is neat and tidy and easy to find what I’m looking for. We have now used the IKEA ALGOT closet system (now called BOAXEL) in three of our closets, and it has made such a difference for storage!
So that’s the small-but-mighty tour! 🙂 Thank you so much for visiting!
