Home Improvement

For almost three years now, we've lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a 135-year-old building. Our abode is rife with, erm, character, so much that it deserves its own rant post. We've been furnishing and decorating with a modest budget since we moved in. There's a limit on how much we want to invest in a money pit rental like this, but since it looks like we'll be here for at least another year, I've been trying to focus on small things that have been bugging me for a while.

Sometimes I do something big, like downsizing the coffee table and moving some furniture in the living room to make it seem bigger, or at least big enough for two small children to peacefully coexist.

Did I take any "before" pictures? Nope. Can I find the panorama I took a few months ago of the "after?" Nope. But do you like my choice of furniture moving pads?

Time to remove the broken child lock and sticker from the diaper pail.

Ta-da! All shiny and Pinterest-y.

And maybe even replace the lamp with the smashed base on the changing table with something the toddler can't kick off during a diaper change.

 This lamp was a placeholder from the Salvation Army, anyways.

Thanks, IKEA.

While the smashed lamp went to the dumpster, the shade was too cute to waste.

It had a crack in it on the wall side.

Boy, that really classed up the $2 lamp from a different thrift store.

While I was at HomeGoods in search of window treatment inspiration, I found two of these:

The best part? The FLAT PLUG.

Do you ever have that problem? Where you always walk out of HomeGoods with what you weren't looking for? Anyways, this led to a little power strip rotation I'd been wanting to do for some time.

This is behind the couch. The not-flat plug was getting bent, which made me nervous since, well, upholstery plus electricity? Note the cable to our router has been drilled THROUGH THE FLOOR.

This also eliminates the visual clutter of the Squid, which is now hidden in our desk. That thing is such an aesthetic burden, but I got it on clearance, ok?!

Flat plug fits behind the couch!

Then there was our super sophisticated method of powering appliances on the kitchen counter, since

some brilliant person wired an outlet at floor level. THROUGH THE CABINET. So, with the Squid in the desk, I moved the desk power strip to improve this little wiring fiasco. I pinned this tip about photocopying the back of something to aid with drilling a few years ago...

I freaking love using the drill.

So much less MacGyvor-y than the extension cord I picked up at Rite-Aid 6 years ago.

Where's the other flat-plug power strip, you might ask? It's now behind the bed. We have four outlets in our bed room, once centered on each wall. I didn't take pictures of our mattress (sitting on the bed rails that came with it, not a bed frame with a fancy headboard or anything) bending the plugs our our bedside lamps, or the baby monitor plugged into an extension cord curling around the hutch on my dresser but I'm sure you can imagine how fire-hazardly that looked.

I'm sorry if this was the most boring blog post that you've ever read It's just that sometimes the smallest things make a big impact in convenience. (And fire safety.) Do you rent or own? How do you shore up the limitations of your living space?