In our house there are two doorways to a hallway that leads to two bedrooms and a bath and half.
I am standing in that hallway with my camera taking a picture of a third bedroom with our little dog Bernadette. Beyond that bedroom is the kitchen/den area and an outside back door.
I am still standing in the same spot but turned to my right looking into the second doorway.
On one of my recent posts i talked about making an apartment in our home for guests or a family member that might need to come stay or live with us one day.
So to make this apartment we needed to close off one of the doorways but it was not that simple as the attic entrance is in this hallway also a closet that is needed for the bedroom that Bernadette was standing in (First photo).
So we had to get very creative about this wall.
We put insulation in this wall to help absorb sound to make each side of the wall private. We do not watch television anymore and removed our televisions several years ago. But for the apartment we have added a television.
So here is the finished wall and separation of the apartment. I am standing in the apartment. There is more room than the photo makes this look. This is large enough for furniture to pass through as well as a wheelchair or walker.
This is one room of the apartment. The chair in the corner of the room is just taking the place of where a recliner will be placed. There is the twin bed for extra sleeping so this is a den/kitchenette/slumber room :)
We put in a drop leaf table and there is room to pull it out for more than one person. We put a charging station as well as a place for a crock pot.
We added this cooker/coffeepot/oven unit on a metal cabinet with a metal splash board behind it.
A small sink area with a small fridge the panda washer spinner and a drying rack.
The panda washer/spinner is on a cart with wheels that will roll into the bathroom to hook up to wash laundry.
This den area has this dresser to use for extra clothing or towels, sheets for the twin bed in this room etc. There is also storage space above the kitchen area and another large cabinet.
This master bedroom in the apartment is not finished, this room is about to be painted and furniture arranged. What you see is the apartment hallway, the far back wall is the room I called the den/kitchenette. So there is quite a bit of space in this apartment. It has a queen bed in this room with a half bath. There is a full bath just outside of this room between this bedroom and the kitchenette and den/tv area.
This is looking into the entrance into the apartment from the front room of the house.
This is the door that closes separating the apartment from our living area. When you open this door and walk in and close the door it becomes a very private apartment. There are 4 other doors within that apartment that close. the master bedroom door, two bathroom doors and the room with the den/kitchenette.
So what about our side? That master bedroom was our bedroom.
We love our romantic space. We call it snuggly. :)
See we got a new wall too when that wall divided the apartment and that wall added us a dressing area with a closet.
This fits perfectly into our plans of living "More" like the past. We are into our second month sleeping in this room and the addition of the dressing area has added more space.
This all fits into our plans of using less water and electricity which we are very happy with our utility bills this summer with the reduction of electric, water and sewer. We must do these things to manage our finances as the only way to save money is to live below our income.
Charles has a shaving area and each morning I place a pitcher of warm water a tall cup of water and he shaves and brushes his teeth here. The blue enamel container is called a spittoon which is used for brushing teeth. No wasted running water here. :)
We are in the process of adding a toilet and sink area off the laundry area in the house and we are still moving things about as we are finding places for our things that were removed from the back of the house. Moving into a smaller space is quite a challenge but interesting.
We have several ways of bathing, we have our bathhouse we built a couple of years ago, we have our washstand, we have an oversized washtub and the apartment is part of our home so we can go in there to shower when we want to. I see the apartment as a bed and breakfast within our home.
I am sharing this with you because I know there are many people that have adult children living in their home. Some have grandchildren and some have their parents living with them. This is a good solution for when we are sharing our home with someone else and this helps solve the need for privacy. Everyone gets their own space.
I wish we had done this a long time ago because we have already had these situations in our life and everyone would have been more comfortable had we put in this division years ago.
Our only problem with any of this is remembering where we put things. ???
I am starting to get stronger since having the pneumonia. I am getting back to cooking meals and getting into somewhat of a routine. Charles has been extremely busy with his job outside the home, building the wall and kitchenette and helping with the dishes and many other things. I could use some prayers for healing the pain I still have in my ribs on my right side. I had this same problem after the flu this past January.
I finished the 30 day clutter challenge in just over a week (considering numbers of items) with the purge from the other side of the house. We made several trips to our local donations center and a gave away several items to our children.
I am starting over now with the clutter removal once again as I will be going through the kitchen cabinets and back over some drawers and cabinets that I have already gone through. Removing clutter is something that takes time and the need to go back over again several times until it all fits comfortably. Downsizing makes it even more challenging.
I have donated extra linens and as you have seen in the pictures I still have many things to remove from the house to make our side less crowded. We are still thinking about the walls in our bedroom if we want to remove the gallery pictures and wallpaper the room or just paint it. Charles likes the pictures and does not feel crowded with them so we are just living with them remaining on the wall for now.
Living like the past or even old fashioned is not a minimalist kind of life. There seems to be more tools and different kinds of things needed to use to live this life so I find we have more things that have purpose and less things that were just ornate.
Also I would like to note that some of these extra items help us to save money. There are tools needed for gardening and cooking without electricity and bathing without running water which is very useful during an outage and for us everyday life.
We love our life as it is right now and we know anything can happen to change that and this is why we live an interesting old fashioned life right now. Living like the past is a wonderful way for us to live. It is entertaining, challenging, most everything takes longer to do the old way which makes it feel more purposeful.
It has improved our finances, and our thought process which makes us want to improve even more. There are so many ways to save money that people never think of. One big problem with finances today for many people is they want everything right now. They want things to happen fast and don't want to make the effort which is a very expensive way to live.
My suggestions for a old fashioned and less costly life
Cook from scratch and eat meals at the table at home.
Cloth diapers
Slow the flow of water and electricity
Buy clothes from the thrift store
Log all your money spent
Have a budget and stick to it
Make a two week menu plan
Less activities away from home, they are costly.
Plug into power strips and turn the strips off at night and when not in use.
Turn off lights in the daytime.
Hang laundry to dry
Wear clothing more than once and hang it up when you take it off.
Do not allow children to throw clothes on the floor and children should have chores.
Get rid of the television and if you do keep one television get rid of cable tv and have one simple antenna.
Children do not need cell phones and if you feel they do for emergencies then give them a simple phone that simply makes a phone call.
Get rid of everything you can that has a subscription fee.
Stop drinking sodas and eating store bought chips and cookies. Make your own snacks from scratch and drink filtered water, it is better for you.
Garden, it is good exercise and you will no longer need a gym membership.
Wash dishes by hand, you can actually use less water no matter what the studies say. Those studies do not take into consideration rinsing the dishes and many other things.
Repurpose water.
Use less paper products, use old rags instead of paper towels.
I will stop with this. Until next time, Grandma Donna
