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New Apartment Layout for the New Year

Every six months or so Brian and I see someone's apartment or go to an open house. This inevitably results in our deciding that we need to change things in our apartment. Our friend, Jay used to make fun of us because our apartment would be completely different every time she came over to visit. We can't seem to help ourselves.

This time we saw our neighbor's apartment. We were watching their cat over the holidays and they have the most wonderful, open apartment. They have nowhere near the amount of stuff we have but it isn't empty or cold. We are a bit jealous. So, of course, this results in our consulting the IKEA catalog (it's pages get pretty worn by the end of each year) and rethinking our space.

This time I decided to use graph paper to create a new layout for the bedroom. This is our bedroom right now:



Behind the bed are windows that you can't get anywhere near with the bed where it is. This layout is also really annoying because the dresser drawers can't fully open and the laundry bins are far too close to the radiator.

It was really kind of a pain to cut out the little pieces of paper representing all of our furniture. However, when I was done, it was really easy to see what I could do with my stuff in the space. I highly recommend taking the time to make the cutouts.

We now think this is the bedroom layout we want:


Do you think this is a good layout? The one compromise is that my bookcases (labeled Billy for the IKEA name) will have to be separated. I do like having a wall of books but I can do without. We are planning a trip to IKEA soon to get me yet another bookcase (I have too many books and I refuse to part with them) and I will let you know how it goes!

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