How I Organized Our Studio Apartment

In July of 2017 we found ourselves at a crossroads, financially. My husband works full time for a local hospital in the IT department, and makes a little extra cash on the side when he can, which enables me to stay at home with our son.

My husband and I both attended a four-year college and earned our Bachelor's degree which means that we have both have school loans to pay off in addition to paying our rent, utilities, insurance, car loans and saving money for a home, and our son. Because we are a one-income family, we found ourselves having to make a choice between owning a home and growing our family, or paying off our school loans (in addition to all of the above mentioned bills). We decided that we had to make some sacrifices to have everything we want: being debt-free and owning our own home so we can comfortably grow our family. The decision was incredibly hard, but we talked it over with my husband's parents, who so graciously allowed us to move into their home with them so we could save money and pay off debt.

We made the move in August of 2017 and gave ourselves some time and room in the budget to be able to spend some money to organize. In the process of moving, we found ourselves sifting through all of our belongings, trying to figure out what we NEEDED to live and what we could keep packed in boxes for the next year or two. As a professional organizer, I was a little excited of the challenge that was ahead of me: moving our family into a studio attic space with almost no storage. I will say, however, that there is one large closet and a half-bath in the living space with lots of storage behind the walls of the attic, should we need it ... OH BOY, DID WE NEED IT!

I had the (fun) challenge of creating two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchenette, and storage space from a studio, attic apartment (with no kitchen set up). I'm going to try to give you a mental image of what our living space looks like: The studio apartment is split into two rooms by a door. On one side of the apartment, there is a bedroom for our son and a living room with play space. The bedroom is separated from the rest of the room with four panels of 95" curtains on a long curtain rod hung from the top of the wall. We keep the curtains open during the day so that Judah can come and go from room to room as he wishes. The play space sits just behind the back of the couch which I purposefully set in the middle of the room as a divider of the open space.

The other room of the apartment is our bedroom with the half bath, and the kitchenette. I know it sounds weird to place the kitchen and bedroom (with a bathroom) in the same room, but our son goes to sleep earlier than we do and the stairs to the apartment are on our side, so this was the only logical way to set up. In the kitchen part of the room, we have a small counter top with bottom cabinets, our kitchen table, a mini fridge, and several tote drawers for our cutlery and cooking essentials. Our bedroom is on the other side of a half wall at the top of the stairs. The half wall has built in shelves that I used as storage for our pantry items. I placed a tension rod to hang hemmed curtains to hide all of our snacks and canned goods. Who really wants to look at food sitting on a shelf?! If it doesn't fit the look of the room, you have to hide it or get rid of it. I found some great baskets at Target that matched our room to place on a shelving unit so I could hide some more of our kitchen items. I also utilized storage under the bed for things that we don't need as often, such as extra electronics and cables, a basic tool kit, and some medical items. The half-bath needed more storage as well, so we also purchased tote drawers for that space and added a few corner shelves to help keep things off of the small counter space.

Although the space is small, it is quite cozy and we enjoy it! We also know that the next year or so will FLY by and we will be buying our own home before we know it! YAY! Another chance to organize a new space!

Here's to our future!

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