Home Interior Makeover #1

Let’s say you don’t have a linen closet or enough space for all your linens. There are several ways, depending on how limited space is. You can put a series of shelves behind the toilet on the wall and place your sheets, towels and other linens. Or, if you can’t use the wall, put a space saver behind every bathroom in the house. Roll small towels and place them in baskets, stack pillowcases with fitted sheets, and sheets placed inside the pillowcase. Now you have a “closet” of linens.

Home Interior Makeover #2

We all need space in the dining room to serve food and keep all the utensils and serving pieces together. For this, you can be so creative. You don’t necessarily need the matching dining set with sideboard and server. You can put two or three nightstands together creating a uniform “server”. Put a table runner across all the nightstands and keep the serving pieces inside the drawers, or just use the top surfaces (like I did in my dining room 🙂

Instead of a sideboard, you can mount shelves that run across the longest wall in your dining room and stack your china plates, bowls, glasses, saucers, really anything. This will free up your floor space and you can put your server underneath.

Having less large furniture on the floor will allow more space for guests to get up, go to the kitchen, wash, sit, get up and help, babies to play, etc.

Home Interior Makeover #3

A separate sleeping space for guests. This is difficult if your house is small. Depending on your guests (is it a couple? single? stranger?) you really need to give them privacy and make sure you have enough privacy. In my opinion, it is ideal to have a separate bathroom for guests, if it is possible to have guests on a separate floor.

I like the privacy and I think you will too once you realize how much fun it is not having to worry about sharing bathroom space or running into a guest in the middle of the night.

Can you do something with your basement to make it comfortable for guests? Would a folding screen give enough privacy? Can you turn your game room sofa into a twin trundle bed?

Think about it, maybe there is a touch you can do to double the space of a room to use for guests when needed.

If you cringe when I mention putting guests in your basement, don’t. If you have an extra cooler down there, guests will really appreciate it. They may have had to bring extra food or something that needs refrigeration.

Trust me, we can make it work.

A word of wisdom: don’t plan your home around your guest room. That is, use every room in your house. When it’s time to have guests, you can make changes. If not, the rooms are not used or tend to be “discarded”.

Home Interior Makeover #4-Pesach Kitchen

For those of you with a Passover kitchen, enjoy! For the rest of us, we can get by. One way requires a bit of construction, the other does not. Let’s start with the easy option.

Put an oven in your basement with a freezer and a long table. Designate the oven and freezer for Passover and you can cook anytime there! (Keep a few shelves stocked with Passover products and Passover cookware, too.) It’s not hard to set this up and this way, when you feel inspired, you can do some cooking before Passover. It is not necessary to cook before Pesach, if you plan ahead. Get a copy of the Passover course before Passover begins!

If you can do some construction, think about this. Put a wall behind the existing kitchen cabinets (still in the kitchen) and mount the cabinets to the back of this wall. In this little alcove, add a stove (maybe a dishwasher) and some countertops. The nook might be small, but at least it’s still in the kitchen area.

Home Interior Makeover #5 – Mudroom

I finally got over my bathroom jealousy and created one.

You see, my house opens up to the living room, dining room, so you walk right into the main areas.

I wanted a place for the family to store backpacks, papers, shoes, coats, etc.

So what did I do?

I have a large closet (you can use a bookcase) that was attached to the wall. I turned it perpendicular to the door so you can see the back. Then I put sticky hooks on it and put a bench right in front of it. Under the bench I put slippers.

Now I have a place to dump things near the front door! My own bathroom.

You can also create a foyer or separate areas of a room by doing exactly what I did. Pulling a large bookcase or cabinet into the middle of an area divides that space.

Or, you can enjoy an aisle tree. It will look better than the back of a bookcase.