I love looking through home decor magazines, with all those houses that sprawl over thousands of square feet, or have been recently renovated to the tune of $200K.  Closets and nifty storage units spill out from the pages, beautiful rolling drawers are tucked into every nook and cranny, and everything has a place.  For someone who loves efficient storage and likes to know where everything is, it's organizational nirvana.

Unfortunately, I don't live in one of those homes.

My little house is precisely 650 square feet (give or take) and features absolutely zero closet space.  It's a restored 80+ year old homesteader's cabin, and, well, homesteaders didn't have a lot of stuff – hence, no closets!  Flash forward 80 years, and it's current owner has so much stuff that all her furniture is in storage with her ex (lucky him) and friends, and the rest is in her parents' attic.  And that's after paring down over the years.  While I'm not a 'collector' of things – when you live in small spaces, you simply can't be – I still have 'stuff'.

So what do you do when you have an average amount of 'things', a home business, a child, a penchant for things looking nice and neat – and you live in a sweet little house with no closets?  I'll tell you what I did – and it didn't cost a lot, nor did we have to undermine the integrity of the heritage structure we live in by adding built-in storage.

Armoires Are Your Friends

I don't know what I'd do without armoires.

I've got several and because I've always lived in small spaces, they've been a terrific help in keeping things neat and tidy.  They're ideal for use as office space, coat closets, arts/camera/games supply cupboards... whatever you might need space for.  And they come in so many different shapes, sizes and styles, you're bound to find one to suit your decor.  Most of mine have been with me for years, though I did buy a new one for our 'coat closet' when we moved into our little cabin.

Now, buying new is always fun and infinitely simpler, but I'll let you in on a little secret - your best deals can be found on Craigslist and at garage sales.  While it takes a little longer than just picking one up at the store, you're bound to find antique treasures, beautiful hand-crafted pieces and high-end designer units for a fraction of the price of new.  Worth the extra effort, I think.

In short, without armoires, my little house would be a mess - they're such a necessity for us.  Chances are they will work for you too.

Baskets = Brilliant

Baskets - such a brilliant invention.

Now, I'm not just talking any old baskets, but beautiful, well built square or rectangular baskets that fit together nicely and are stackable.  I've got three different styles in our house, and they all coordinate with the others.  The big sturdy ones I pick up at our local big box store when they go on sale (which is actually fairly often), and the smaller, more colourful baskets were purchased inexpensively at Pier 1.  Add to that a couple of bolga baskets (those gorgeous market baskets from Africa) for some of my son's toys and my mending and knitting projects, and we're pretty well set.  For me, baskets are like the armoires - indispensible.  To be able to have little things out in the open without it looking messy is such such a gift.  And things just don't get lost as easily!  Now that's helpful when you're running out the door and can't find that movie you need to return to the video store...

What's Hiding Under the Stairs

In our little house, we have a set of open-riser stairs going up to the loft.  The stairs were left open to keep the main room lighter and airier, but it created some issues when I decided I'd use the space for storage of bins that are, shall I say, less attractive than all those beautiful baskets (I'm talking Rubbermaid totes and those clear closet storage bins).  Essentially, it's an 'under stairs closet'.  So what we did was create fabric pieces to fit the openings, and simply pinned them up with flat, white, metal tacks, leaving the bottoms free for access.  Now, obviously this technique has its limitations (and weirdly, getting the right shape for the triangle was incredibly difficult - apparently pattern-makers we are not!!), but it works for us for now.  One day, we might frame in the stair risers and put proper doors on the openings, but for now, this works, and it didn't cost a penny outside of my mother's time to sew the panels.  Thanks, Mom!

No More Tripping Over Shoes

I have a pet peeve about shoes lying all over an entrance way.  When you live in a tiny house, it's not just annoying, but downright dangerous - tripping and falling where there's a sharp corner within two feet in every direction is not a safe proposition.  In our case, we employed the old food cupboard from the original homestead as a shoe closet.  It sits on the front porch and acts as a repository for all the boots and shoes we aren't using imminently.  Keeps us tidy and safe, plus it adds to the historical feel of the house and is a bit of a conversation piece.  The cupboard was without any rot after 80 years of damp west coast weather, so it would have been silly not to use it.  You could use any small cupboard, really, or something purpose-built for shoes. It doesn't really matter, so long as it keeps your shoes neat and tidy.

As with armoires, shoe cabinets are easy to find on Craigslist without a lot of effort.  Worth checking out - unless, of course, you enjoy tripping over shoes...

Chests as Linen Closets

With no closet space, I wasn't sure where to store all of our spare linens, wool blankets, and the like.  The little house had a few mice scurrying about when we moved in, so I wanted to make sure all the antique linens were secure from the teeth of tiny four-legged critters.  Fortunately, I have a cedar chest that was my grandmother's and that my dad re-skinned for me many, many years ago.  It now sits proudly in the loft and stores all our linens and traveling gear (backpacks, linen bags, etc.).  It works out well, but honestly, it could stand to be about two feet longer.  Or maybe I should just get rid of a few things...  Needless to say, you can find these pieces pre-owned for a steal in most cities and towns.  It's amazing how much great furniture people get rid of on a regular basis.

The Wrap-Up

So there you have it!  You might have to spend a bit of time and energy on finding the right armoire, baskets or shoe cabinets for your space, but the results - no longer tripping over piles of stuff, or struggling to remember where you last saw your car keys - are worth every penny.

Do you have any unique ideas for storage in small spaces?  Share them below - we'd love to hear!

You can see all the photos on our main blog: modernhomesteading.ca.  

Decorating a heritage log cabin in a modern, chic kind of way is challenging, to say the least.

That fact became clear when my big, gorgeous distressed brown leather couch refused to fit through the narrower-than-standard door.

Then the matching chair didn't fit either.

As you can imagine, moving the contents of an urban townhouse into an 80-year old log cabin wasn't exactly easy.  For the most part, the furniture just didn't match the new environment - at all. A few pieces made the transition, but most ended up in storage.

So how do you decorate a funky old house – a tiny, 650 square foot log cabin at that – with a great sense of style, and without breaking the bank buying all new furniture?

I'm no interior decorator, but I do think I have a pretty good eye for design.  And for making the best of a few basic pieces.  So when we moved into our little cabin in the woods (almost wrote 'weeds', but that would be true too!), it was 'game on'.  I was up for the challenge and loved the fact that I had so many pieces to work with that had such a rich history.

Setting the Stage

To set the stage, or the 'palette' of the decor, there was the house itself.

Built around an 80-plus year old homesteader's log cabin that we disassembled, reassembled and restored (with the addition of a loft and a lean-to kitchen and bathroom), the cabin is really a marvel of 'do-it-yourself' ingenuity.  To think a lone man hand-hewed all of these heavy fir logs himself (and they are HEAVY) is remarkable.  I can't imagine the effort that must have gone into building it.  But as lovely and full of life as logs are, they definitely limit the decor options.  So I took this all into account and decided to go with a sort of modern country, clean-lined shabby chic sort of look.

In the interior of the house, we used theoriginal front door from the old cabin 'pre-restoration' as the new bathroom door, and the old homesteader's single kitchen cupboard as our shoe and boot cabinet on the porch.  I love the fact we were able to use some of these items as features in the 'new' house.  You can see the initials of the man I purchased the cabin from poked into the old door (he spent a lot of time in the cabin when he was a child, as his family owned the property it sat on). I love that sense of history.

The Bathroom

There were a few pieces that 'came with' the cabin that worked perfectly with my new ideas.  One was a hand-made cabinet that we turned into a vanity in the bathroom.  We added a modern new sink and an antique picture frame-turned-medicine cabinet, along with the clawfoot tub, white shower curtains, silver surrounds and a big nickel rainshower shower head to turn the bathroom into a tiny oasis of heritage and modern convenience.

The Kitchen

Before the renovation, the kitchen was pretty rustic.  Coming from a sleek white and stainless steel kitchen in the city, I was at a bit of a loss for what to do with this galley-shaped space.  But we're lucky enough to have a very talented carpenter renting on our property and he built us a set of kitchen cabinets out of scrap wood and old louvered doors that could not better match the cabin's decor.  He added a hand-built spruce countertop and the antique cast iron sink and drainboard... and I love it.

Furniture and Decor

We had a lot of fun finding furniture and decor items to pull the whole look together.  Some of the furniture was already in the cabin (it had been a rental for a few years).  So we bought some new slipcovers and voila!  A whole new look.  We painted the dark oak table and bookshelf with glossy white paint, installed white tabbed curtains throughout that we found at the thrift store and painted the armoire trim black to match the curtain rods, dark beams and metal.

The only new items we purchased were the baker's rack hangers from Ikea to use as hangers for our art wall, a beautiful black purpose-built armoire for our coat closet, and a gorgeous black timber platform bed for the loft that has the same hand-hewn look as the timbers that support the entire building.

So as you can see, log cabin decor doesn't have to be dark, frilly or boring.  With a bit of imagination, a good eye, and a few nice pieces, you can bring an old heritage cabin into the 21st century without losing its hand-hewn charm.  In our next post, I'll show you the heirloom items that put the finishing touches on the cabin decor.