Repurposing Furniture

When my husband and I thought about how we would set up the house we just moved into, we found that we had very little storage. There is an “attic” that can be used as a bedroom and one of our teen agers is using that huge space as a bedroom. The lack of storage was a big problem since we had an empty basement that we put many boxes in at our last house.

The first thing I did was impress everyone with the lack of storage. Then I forced my husband to go through his books and papers in the basement and get rid of as much as he can (He is a pack rat!). My daughters and I got rid of most of the toys. Then I thought about where to store things.
One of our problems is that my husband and I were going from our own closets to one that we had to share. Luckily it is a good size. We always left all of our clothes hanging in the closet no matter what the season. With just one closet we couldn’t do that. Where to store the overflow?

Here is what I did:

We have a white cabinet that has 4 shelves and I used it to store the good china in. In the new house I have huge amounts of cabinet space in the pantry. I put the good china in the cabinets in the pantry. Then, I took the cabinet and placed it in our bedroom and filled it with all of our sweaters. This made space in the large tubs that we have for winter storage. We placed the hanging, winter clothes into the tubs. Problem solved. A dish cabinet is moved to another part of the house and repurposed to be a cabinet to house sweaters.

I also repurposed a toy box. This box held my teen agers’ toys when they were small. In our last home, it held board games that we still play. Now, it sits at the foot of our bed holding winter blankets. It even looks like it matches the white, china/sweater cabinet!

Think about other ways to use furniture and extend the usefulness. In the long run, this will save you money. I didn’t run out and buy plastic blanket storage bins or a beautiful, cedar chest. I used what I had and got creative.