August 5, 2011

A Simple Living Room Makeover

After a year of living together, we've come up with a lot of ideas of how we could make our space work better for us. Our big project this summer has been trying to better organize and arrange our apartment and, more importantly, get rid of anything we don't need in order to make our lives easier the next time we move. We aren't spending a lot of money or making enough changes to have dramatic before and after photos, but it's still been rewarding to see the improvements.



Before: Our bookshelves were a mess, and our floor was cluttered with hardware and tools that Nathan was using to build a test computer (for Server 2008 and Linux, for those who care).


After: With the bookshelves side by side and the TV moved out of the corner, suddenly we had tons of space! We used one of our end tables as a makeshift desk for the test computer. The TV is now directly in front of our couch.



Before
 


After: We finally hung up our wedding photo with our signed matte!



Before: I had my books on a couple small shelves on the far back wall behind the couch.



After: The larger shelf moved into the second bedroom to hold some of our less attractive books and binders, and the chair we had in the living room replaced it.


The other bookshelf replaced the end table we're now using as a computer desk.




To make more room on our bookshelves, we filled a box with books we want to sell or give away. We also boxed up some of our books that we want to keep but don't need on our shelves, most of which are kids' books.

And there you have it - a few small changes that have made our living room a much more pleasant place to live.








8 comments:

  1. Love it! :) It's funny how sometimes we *think* we're making the most of our space, but when we rearrange, we find we were using more than we saved! Or maybe we just like to see something new and it's some kind of psychological effect in our brain that makes us think we have more space...

    Either way, I like the improvements! (And improvements with minimal spending of money is the ultimate sign of frugality!) :D

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  2. Wow, that gives much more space! Maybe I need to look at my own living space and see what I can do to create more room!

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  3. Great improvement! I love seeing before and after pictures! And Tyler also leaves all of his computer pieces out in the corner of our living room. He's always trying to do something with a nearby computer. haha!

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  4. Thanks, everyone!

    Kayla - Nathan even did the layout in Visio before he moved in, yet we still found a better way.

    T.K. - Funny how just moving all the computer stuff makes the room look instantly cleaner!

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  5. That's a LOT of boxcar children books. At least it appears that most of them are boxcar children books. It looks nice btw. Needing to do some arranging here.

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  6. Debra - I think we have the first 68 Boxcar Children Books. I had all 68, and Nathan had a lot too. We got rid of the duplicates when we got married.

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  7. I love you guys and I love how you put your home and life out there like this... it's really wonderful !!

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  8. I'm a bit late but I love it! I might be inspired to rearrange my furniture now.

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