Papa and I are no strangers to small spaces. In fact, we kind of have a thing for them. One of the things we have learned about small spaces is that you really need to think outside the box with them. You really have to search out the nooks and crannies with them, unlike larger spaces. Our current small space, the camper, is a work in progress, but I wanted to share some of the tricks we've employed to make three and a half months of five people living in about 300 square feet possible.
Let's start with this little corner!
This is our menu board, fruit basket, and the kids' art supplies. The menu board was inspired by the one here. The idea was great, but I needed it to go a step further. One of my downfalls in life is that I have a ridiculously difficult time coming up with ideas for side dishes - or even remembering to think of them in a timely manner. So, I set up the menu board to help me with this. Each color of clothespin is one day. There is a color for each day of the week. The top row is for the main dish. The middle row is for a veggie or fruit side. The bottom row is for a starch based side. I made the little strips of construction paper and wrote down all of our options on them. Red is beef, orange is pork, yellow is chicken, and green is main dishes with fish or veggies. Blue is sides. I store all of the strips in zip top baggies for now, but I would like to find some type of little cups I can hang on the wall for them. At the beginning of the week, the kids and I plan out our menu for the week.
Next up is our fruit basket. Don't mind that it seems to be a bit sideways. We started out with a long, narrow basket at the back of the table, along the wall. But with Elliott's reach getting longer and longer, we were growing short on tabletop space. Then I saw this basket on pinterest, and my wheels got to spinning! But I felt that the rigid metal in that basket might bruise delicate fruit. So we found this basket with the wire frame wrapped in raffia, and it seemed to be just the thing.
Last is the under cabinet basket of art supplies. I originally saw the idea here, and it was the perfect solution for the conundrum of where to put the kids' things that we didn't want the baby to get in to. This one holds the coloring books, crayons, dry erase boards and dry erase crayons and markers.
The one on this side holds paper page books. And just beyond it is our spice storage. The top basket came from the bathroom section of Walmart. It came with suction cups which we removed and then screwed it to the wall. The lower one came from a thrift store and has two levels. Honestly, though, we have more spices than we can fit in this set up. We would prefer to have 3 of the larger ones. We just haven't sprung for them yet.
This is some of our storage and organization in the dining area. I'll share more from the kitchen and bath next week!Labels: Camping, Mindful Home, Mindful Living
