What 560 Square Feet Looks like

18 months ago I downsized even further from a 1000 square foot condo to a 560 square foot "granny flat" in my daughter's home. I have my own entrance, a separate 3/4 bath and a small kitchenette.

The space is dominated by laundry machines and the on-demand water heater. Here's how it looked at move-in.

In my mind, I envisioned a small kitchen here adjacent to the washer and dryer. 

btw: That pool table used to "stage" the home is child-sized, so don't be fooled! :-)

The first order of business was to paint all the pale yellow walls instead with Valspar's Bistro White. I then spray painted all the door knobs with Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze. I freaking love this stuff! Later, I painted all the ceilings just a plain, ceiling flat white.

The kitchen turned out a little different than I planned. Due to some financial setbacks, I was not able to hire a contractor to fit in a proper kitchen. So, to make do, I created a kitchenette. I purchased the most amazing slender refrigerator from AJ Madison made by LG, bought Seville Classics industrial style shelving from Amazon, and created my own worktop with a long piece of hobby board from Lowes that I treated with Salad Bowl Finish, also from Amazon. Add to that a toaster oven, a single burner, plug-in electric cooktop and an electric tea kettle.

The only thing missing is the kitchen sink, literally! To do the washing up, I use the camping method of two plastic tubs, one for wash, one for rinse. I keep my kitchen dishes and implements limited, so it's easy to keep up with the hand washing.

I still hate the washer/dryer being in my dining room, and would love to camouflage it some day.

I tucked a rolling cart from WalMart under the stairs to add concealed storage and give me more worktop space.

The front door was white, inside and out.

I decided to spruce it up with Valspar's Blackberry in satin finish from Ace Hardware.

 

I added a Claddagh door knocker from Design Toscano, an inexpensive peephole from Ace Hardware, and a storm door with a factory installed cat flap from Lowes. 

I painted the exterior of the storm door the same blackberry as the main door. The paint may not hold up for years here in the PNW, but I was willing to give it a shorter-term makeover from the white that it came in for the cost savings over a custom door. I also spray painted the trim and the door handle from white to Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze. The cats love being able to come and go as they please! 

The door hanger is a collection of leaves and pinecones from my neighborhood walks.

This was the "Living Room" space, opposite the laundry on the other side of the staircase leading up to the main floor of the house. 

The former owner had staged the space with small furnishings that did not stay with the home. She did, however, leave the shelving, which I repurposed into shelving for my shoes in the bedroom closet. You'll see that later.

This is the Living Room today, furnished with soothing greys, black, white and cream tones, with touches of blue and red.

Left of entrance door

And the stairs leading up...

On to the bedroom. It is small, but has great bones. I knew I could overhaul it to make the most of the small footprint.

Adjacent to the reach in closet is a very nicely structured shelving closet. Great for storage. The only drawback is these closets had no doors, and the openings were different heights.

With a limited budget for construction, I knew these horrible brown animal print drapes had to go, but what to replace them with?

The bedroom is now the same soothing Bistro White, with a custom grey paint shade on one wall.

I solved the closet door problem with a Levolor ceiling mounted curtain track from Amazon and customized sheer white curtains, Vivan, from IKEA. Using quick hemming tape to adjust them to proper length and attaching with curtain pleat hooks, I now have a classically chic, floor-to-ceiling look.

To maximize the storage space for clothing and shoes, I cut the single, long wood hanging pole into two shorter lengths, and re-hung them perpendicular to the back wall of the closet. Then, I painted and reinstalled all those ugly brown shelves found throughout the space onto new white brackets for my burgeoning shoe collection. Finally, I brought in my trusty IKEA metal baskets from my previous condo, added the hanging IKEA topper and voile! Look at all the space! And it's nicely hidden behind the curtains when closed.

I removed these hideous brown curtains to make way for a custom roller blind from Blinds.com.

The corner is now a nice little spot for a cup of tea and writing in my journal.

The 3/4 bath was always gorgeous.

However, I did make a few changes by painting the walls Bistro White, lightening the ceiling color to a paler shade of grey and spray painting the light fixture and towel bar Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze.

All in all, I love my little space!

DIY Custom Closet

Recently I moved from a 3,000 square foot home to a 1,000 square foot condo. My closet space changed dramatically. What I had in the house: (yes those are photos hanging on the wall of a closet, LOL!)

And the reality of what I have in the condo. 

A closet redo was mandatory. 

The first thing I did was try to emulate some of the features of my large walk in closet that I loved. Plenty of shoe shelves where I could actually see all my shoes, and drawer space that allowed me to keep handbags, scarves and other items that don't do well on shelves, neatly arranged and contained. To accomplish the drawer space, I opted for a free-standing IKEA item (Algot) that would mean I didn't have to install any special hanging hardware required for closet systems with drawers.

I intended to reuse the single, builder-grade metal shelving by moving it up higher and then planned to install another metal shelf midway down the wall, across half of the reach-in closet. Because I have installed a number of different closet systems in the past, I had learned that it takes quite a bit of time to install the wood type and the mounting rail style shelving, so it just made sense for me to go with the direct install variety that was already in place.

From here I began to sketch out what my closet needed to look like based on the number of items I own, length of items, types of items, etc. Then I made careful measurements of all of the elements needed, which basically boiled down to a kit, wall anchors and some end attachments that are sold at a big box home improvement store.

I installed the wall anchors and went to install the previously mentioned shelf that was put in by the builder. Turns out it was a different maker than what I bought and didn't fit the wall anchors, so I traipsed back to the big box and purchased an 8 foot long shelf that I then came home and cut with bolt cutters to fit the length of my closet. (quite a job because I am apparently weak and my cutters are lame).

For my shoes, I intended to build a shelf system from pre-cut wood boards. I purchased 8 precut 6" x 24" pine (I think?) boards that I found in the hobby section of same big box store and 4 precut 2.5" x 24" pieces as well to cut at home into 16 side supports for the shelves. To round things out I bought a giant box of wall anchors, paint supplies and the like. I already owned paint to match the trim, left behind by the former owner, so that I did not have to buy.

After measuring the depth of my closet I determined the walls were not squarely 24" deep as the original measurement read. So, had to shave off a bit of the ends on each shelf (and do this a couple of times later to adjust for each shelf. The further up the wall, the measurement continued to decrease.) I did all the measuring and cuts with a jigsaw in my air conditioned and carpeted living room. Ha!

 

Once the shelves were measured and cut, I used the width of the shelf to measure the appropriate width for the side supports. These were cut from the (4) 2.5" x 24" strips of matching wood. (4 resulting pieces from each of the 4=16, one for each end of 8 shelves to rest on)

Then I sanded and painted with 2 coats of trim paint, drilled holes in one of the pieces, then used it as a template for the other 15 end pieces. Following that I put in wall anchors where appropriate and screwed the supports into the anchors/wall. (ps-ask your local hardware store guy which anchors to use for your wall types. It depends on the material, I don't presume to be an expert on wall anchors, so do your homework on that so your shelves stay put over time.)

Next, the shelves were placed on each set of side supports and hot glued down. Yup. The woman's equivalent to duct tape. :-) NOTE: You may want to use something more substantial, like construction adhesive or nails. 

This is the end result of the closet:

Starting to shelve the shoes...

Everything in its own place.

Okay, it's not as grand as my last closet, but my clothes and shoes can breathe now and I can easily get to everything. btw: I relocated the safe to another closet in my office which made possible the lower hanging shelf so the sleeves don't touch anything beneath them, and my kitty cats can hide there too!