Day 108 - Fantastically Functional

I know I said I was going to do more on emergency preparation, but it really seems pointless when, if you're so inclined, you can get all the info your heart desires at http://www.72hours.org/ (it's phenomenally complete). Besides, I'm only about 15% done with my initial go-bag - it's gonna be a long-ish project!

My amazing hubby is home for 6 more days before he has to head back out, and I've been zooming around like a demented bumblebee trying to Get Everything Done before he leaves. We're contemplating getting new kitchen cabinets (WOOT! The ones I have now SUCK and are going to dump my dishes on the floor any day now), and poor Marty's Honey-Do list is a mile long. Sebastian is mostly potty trained (again, WOOT!), and gets mini marshmallows for his successes. He calls them "marsh-berries" - I love this. This is our lives in a nutshell at the moment.

My dreadful kitchen cabinets that don't close

All this talk of new cabinets brought up the topic of Functional Space, which, weirdly, I hadn't really considered much before. Living in NYC, we're used to packing everything up and moving every few years, so the routine is to stick everything somewhere and make do with whatever "eccentricities" your apartment might have - like a toilet in the kitchen, or the front door opening directly into your bed. A few years ago, we bought ourselves a small apartment in Queens, and, until now, have continued with this model. Why? I don't know either.

For the past week, I've been looking at our home with new eyes. In "Simple Home: Calm Spaces for Comfortable Living", it's photo after photo of uber-spare, clean, sparse rooms that I could just fall into and be perfectly happy. Clearly, no children live in this book (I would miss Sebastian!). Lesson gleaned: once you've purged down to the bare bones, store the rest conveniently where you need it, out of sight. Honestly - it was a revelation to me that I didn't have to keep my toaster on the counter, it could be put in a cabinet. Revelation, people. Of course, this requires Storage Space.

Europeans have turned functional space, from storage to multi-purpose items, into an art form. There's also a fun "Small House" movement gaining popularity in some areas of the country, where people are living in about 400 square feet (this fun episode of Design Star works with exactly this), which necessitates everything doing double duty, and some really clever space saving solutions. This totally gets me going, ya'll! How much space can we reclaim? How much easier can I make my day by putting things where I use them, and in an arrangement that makes sense?

If your space isn't efficient, then you will automatically procrastinate - it's harder to work, harder to clean, harder to relax, etc. I procrastinate with meal prep because knives are over here, cutting boards are over here, measuring cups are over here, you get the picture. I realized there are lots of places I'm wasting time and energy, so this is what I'm tackling next. What about you? Do you have any clever ways you've saved space or made it more efficient? Share - I need some creative ideas that don't include shoving things under a table and hiding them with a curtain!