Creating New Spaces in Old Places

Up until this weekend, we had a closet on our second floor that looked like this:

Neither Bill nor I could remember the last time we had gone in the closet for any other reason than to grab the vacuum.  It was a full closet containing things we never use!  It was our 'linen closet', but we keep our spare sheets in our respective bedroom closets, and the insane number of blankets in the closet were never, ever used.  We also had one 'memory bin' per family member stored in the closet.  Our memory bins are where we put things that are important to us that don't have another home in our house.  For example, old photos and cards fill Bill and my baskets.   Lucky and Charm's include their baptism candles and certificates, along with coin sets they were given for their birth years, jewelry, and anything else that we deem important and worth saving, but is/are best kept outside of a toddler's reach.  We ended up moving these memory bins into our respective closets as well.  (Thank goodness for huge bedroom closets with lots of tall shelving!)

I went through the sheets and blankets that we weren't using and put them into either a 'guest bedroom' pile or a 'donate/garage sale' pile.  Extra pillows found a home in our guest bedroom closet in the basement.  The rolled up rug went in Charm's room, for now, but will probably be sold in the future.

I ended up with an empty closet that I was very excited to fill back up with some of my favorite things: picture frames, wall hooks, canvas frames, mirrors and more!  Essentially, it's a 'home decor' closet:), and I love it!

It's not crazy organized yet, but I love that my spare decor pieces are centrally located instead of all throughout the house.  I do have my spare throw pillows, lamps and a few larger home decor items in our basement.

But, we didn't stop with one closet.  Nope.  We decided that we were tired of having a 'junk' room where Charm's old nursery had been.  Here's what it looked like in the morning:

It was a somewhat dangerous, not fun place.  By putting the decor items in my new closet and by reorganizing a few places in our basement to allow room for the spare mattresses we were storing, we were able to create a new space that now looks like this:

I didn't spend a penny putting it together and honestly, had no intention of spending my Sunday working in this room.  There's just something about 98 degree weather that makes me crave air conditioning over 'fresh air'.  I did go shopping in my new decor closet and added a few new frames from my clearance Target stash and the rug was a Target clearance find for $10.  We picked it up on our road trip through Iowa because I just loved it, but didn't have a place in mind for it.  Now, I do.  

I still plan to do a bit more in this room, like adding window treatments and some artwork above the couch, but for now, I'm happy to have a place for the kids to unwind at night, a place to fold laundry, and another place for everyone to play.  It's amazing what a difference a day can make!