It's All About Storage!

Most of last summer was spent working remotely at the Michigan House, while working ON the Michigan House. But I came home at the end of August for about a month, so my brother, M, could go up & do a few things out of my reach - literally.  As he had been diagnosed as an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier earlier in the summer, our paths could not cross! So his part of the projects were carefully detailed in lists, while I was back at home creating wreaking havoc on my Studio/Home Office and Bedroom. 

The need for more useful (read: More Storage) furniture in both rooms was great and I was determined to keep the budget small. The downstairs bedroom is small, only fitting a full size bed.  The old RR armoire was not configured well and it had a rounded top, which was not good balancing the tv on top of it. It had to go.  Along with the small nightstand, the wire rack that went over the nightstand and the twin of the DVD cabinet that was in the Studio.

I used the twin of this DVD cabinet for books in the bedroom.

The little chest of drawer stayed, moved across the room to the wall where the nightstand was and got new knobs.  It's amazing how changing the hardware changes the whole look of the chest.

The old white knobs were replaced by the oil-rubbed bronze finish knobs

That opened up the far wall for a few new pieces. The problem was that the dimensions would fit two highboy dressers, not a matching dresser & chest of drawers. All my hunting and I couldn't find two highboys.  What's a girl to do? Luck had me finding this gorgeous Thomasville armoire. 

Still at the resale shop

Used, at a charity resale shop and marked down! W was instrumental is securing this piece, as I had to work. He had to shoo away 3 separate other customers who were eyeballing it before the shop lady could tag it as sold - to him! It had been at the shop for almost 4 weeks and hadn't sold, so the price was reduced to $25! We ended up wrestling this piece home ourselves, as the delivery fee would have been $95. Um, thanks but no, we did it ourselves. 

It not only fit in the bedroom, I still had room for another piece. I knew I'd never find its twin and I needed some deep drawer storage for clothes. In my thrift shop furniture hunting, I ran across oak horizontal filing cabinets. Two of them, not quite identical, at two different shops. W to the rescue again! He retrieved both of them, once I realized they would fit the space, stack on top of each other & give me the much needed storage! 

The ever so slightly smaller filing cabinet on top, with gripper pads to keep it in place!

The cost for both $57.50. SCORE! Deep drawers and a perfect spot for the tv on top. Not to mention, the wood finish color on the filing cabinets matched the armoire fairly closely. These three pieces tripled my storage space vs. the old RR armoire, in less than twice the space!!! 

Now that we had the furniture in place, it was time to purge clothes, books, and belongings, as well as figuring out what to house where. I'm still working on that! It's slow going, as I spent most of October back in Michigan, and I've moved some things around a few times. Eventually, everything will find its proper place - either here or with someone else.