Readers’ Small Spaces: Jenne in San Diego

This picture lets you see a bit of how the house is laid out--it's actually a big circle. The living room leads to the bedroom which leads to the bathroom which leads to the little back room which leads to the kitchen which leads to the living room again. At the right you can see there's an alcove at one end of the living room--I think it originally held a Murphy bed. Maybe someday I'll put one in there again--it would be nice for guests! Right now I use an air mattress, which just barely fits. For parties, I have a card table that fits behind the bookshelf when I'm not using it, and folding chairs that I store in the office/closet.

Living room:
One of the great features of this house is all the neat built-in furniture. Sometimes I like to sit on the windowsill and read. I've been looking for the perfect rug to put here--any thoughts?

Office Closet:
This is a closet off the living room with a built-in dresser. I had the carpenter put in a shelf above the dresser and a desk top that folds up to meet it.

Office Desk:
When you fold down the desktop, it makes a nice big workspace--I put in an electric outlet for a latop, sewing machine, etc.

Kitchen:
I had these little shelves put in over the sink (which, by the way, it was almost impossible to find a sink that would fit in the narrow countertop). Washing dishes can be interesting--I have a sprayer for washing large things that don't fit in the sink, and a folding dish drainer that fits under the sink. I don't usually have everything put away like this, but there actually IS a place for everything.

Breakfast Nook:
This is the greatest thing because you don't have to find somewhere to put a table. The benches actually lift up and there's storage underneath--it's like living on a boat.

Folding Counter:
I asked the carpenter to build this--it's similar to one in my parents' house. It's really handy for big cooking projects. The little room beyond it doesn't really have a name--the blue cabinet is a repurposed printer cabinet that I use as a linen closet. I put the little bookshelf on top to hold all my cookbooks. The pictures on the wall are from a cookbook that my grandmother got as a wedding present. They say things like "Time and your oven await the occasion and the man."

Kitchen Cupboards:
In a small space, it's really important to have all your storage obsessively organized...or maybe it's just because I'm a librarian? Either way, it helps to use those cupboard inserts so you don't have to stack things on top of each other.

Bedroom:
There sure are a lot of bookshelves... The shoe holder is several 2-drawer sets from Ikea, stacked on top of each other. I took out the drawers and most of them are elsewhere in the house, holding CDs. (You can see two of them on top)

Closet Vanity:
Hi! Another awesome built-in dresser and mirror in the bedroom closet. I use a dinner tray for my jewelry.

Closet:
When I moved here I had to fit everything in less than half the closet space. Switching to wire hangers actually made a big difference.

HELP! Bathroom:
The bathroom has hardly any storage--just a medicine cabinet--so I really have to get creative about where to keep things. The cleaning products are mostly under the kitchen sink, hair stuff is in the bedroom, etc, but I still haven't found a good place to put extra toilet paper. Suggestions?

The bungalow court:
There are a lot of these in this part of San Diego, though most of them are in a more Spanish style. This one was built in 1922.