bathroom storage

I remember back when we were looking for apartments last July.  After a few runs of bad luck I felt thoroughly defeated (the Morning Man is a little more "glass half full" than I am), but then we stepped into this cute apartment in Logan Square and were instantly charmed.  At that time it was chock full of the current tenants' things, we walked around thinking, "wow these people have a lot of crap!" There was a keyboard in the kitchen and a dresser around every corner.  We took a peek in the closet hiding the water heater and were greeted with a plethora of jackets, boxes and stuff, stuff, stuff.  The landlord told us the tenants were going to be moving into a studio apartment, and we just couldn't imagine how.

We were charmed by the original moldings and the built in hutch, the full sized washer and dryer (just for us), a space in the garage, and, my personal favorite, a small office off of the living room with french doors.  The price was right, the landlord was great and it was all ours by the 1st of August.

We moved in our boxes and a couch, and soon came to realize that although the previous tenants did have more stuff than us we were still going to have the same problem as they did. . .  STORAGE!!!

Other than the closet in the bedroom there is no place to put things out of sight.  So, after we had made fun of the other couple for shoving their extra things in with the water heater we ended up having to do the same, along with using the beautiful studio as a "boxes we don't know what to do with yet" room.

It's been 10 months, and we've been slowly addressing the storage problem.  You can walk in the studio now, and our clothes are up off the floor, but up until last weekend there was nowhere to put things in the bathroom.  After months of my incessant complaining the Man decided we should do something about it, so we headed over to the shop.

First we cut the wood into the pieces we'd need

(we meaning Andrew because the table saw scares me)

The we used an awesome tool called "The Domino" to create biscuit joints, so that the little cabinet would be super sturdy.

Then, before we put glue in the joints, we sanded everything down to get the pencil marks off and to prevent future slivers.

 (It was a lazy Sunday, so please excuse my "just out of bed" look)

After we sanded everything down and quickly glued all the pieces together, we used a staple gun to make extra sure this little shelf isn't going to fall apart.

I thought we were just going to take some scraps and staple them together but even when doing quickie-nothing-to-them projects Andrew can't help but go the extra mile. He even had us put trim on the front so it looks finished and clean.

Here it is all nice and empty in the shop.

And Here is what it solved!!

YAY! It's been a few days now and it's working great!! Everything is easy to take out and put back, and for once everything actually gets put in a place where it belongs.  Because isn't that what everything needs? . . . A place to Belong?

(Ha ha, didn't expect a moral to that story did ya?)