Saturday, August 31, 2013

Moving Day

It's moving day here, and also the Grand Prix. So the movers are lost and we are moving all the valuables and poorly packed breakable items to our cars. We ran out of boxes and so the windowsills and closets are full of junk that we don't have a place for, which means we'll be coming back later once we've unpacked boxes. I don't understand how people move cross country and pack everything and clean simultaneously, but mad props to them. 
(I learned last time not to pack the knife block, so they are riding shotgun.)

Friday, August 30, 2013

Ikea

For the tiny house dweller, Ikea can be a pretty great resource.  We knew we would need to make the most of every square inch of our house, so we started looking at storage beds.  The idea being the storage bed would double as either a linen closet, or as seasonal storage. 

We wound up getting the Brimnes Bed Frame with storage - I really didn't want to get a bed from Ikea, but all of the other storage beds out there were too tall, or had a lot of wasted space.  Of the beds from Ikea, the Brimnes is one of the cheapest with storage.  However, it's the only one where the drawers are on rails.  The other ones, the drawers are just on wheels and roll in and out.  That did not appeal to me with our carpets and other issues. 

Available here
The whole thing took a long time to put together, and for awhile was a six person team.  Two of us assembled drawers, two assembled the beds, and two ran around handing us screws and tools.  Definitely use a drill with screwdriver bit to put this together, and you will also need many regular screwdrivers of the same size if you can.  It has a ton of tiny pieces, so I recommend putting them all on paper plates or in cups to start with to keep them separate. 

We bought the slats but are planning on just using a low profile box spring and mattress (we did not go for an Ikea mattress, so we'll see how this goes), so I think we'll return the slats.  

I'll update once we've actually slept on it and know how durable it is.  

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Apps

When we started house hunting, I installed the Realtor.com app.  While the website certainly had some issues, I really liked the app.  Even though I eventually also downloaded Redfin, I found myself preferring Realtor - it showed nearby open houses, nearby houses for sale, and recently sold houses using a tag with the price.  You could star ones that you liked and it also showed a checkmark next to ones you had already used.  The most recent update to the iPad app cluttered up the search with sold houses, and you can't undo it, so I do hope they fix it.   A number of my friends like the Zillow or Trulia apps, but they don't always have the most up to date info (the websites especially) so we skipped those.  It was easy to log in on the computer, although searching on the actual Realtor website was really annoying and time consuming - I found myself pulling out the app just to do a search. 

Because I'm crafty, I of course already had the Pinterest app on my phone, and originally that was my go-to for house design stuff.  This created a couple of problems, like some of my nosier friends getting excited and asking if we'd found a house when I started pinning some very specific features.  Mostly, the search interface wasn't great, the links weren't always good, and people on Pinterest seem to define small bathroom as "my whirlpool tub and shower don't each have their own room". 

When we first started looking a houses that had weird little quirks that we would need to change, I started googling things to see if they were possible or how they looked.  And over and over again, I would get links to Houzz.  I assumed that Houzz was like when you google a recipe for something delicious and then you get a link to Cooks.com or one of the other horrible sites that just gives you 400 recipes that are NOT what you were searching for.

So it wasn't until three or four of my twitter friends suggested I check out Houzz that I went ahead and downloaded the app.  And it's awesome.  It's like Pinterest for houses, but the search function is better, you don't get 400 pictures of the exact same thing, and when you repin, it doesn't make you write stupid captions. Plus, generally there is a link to the designer and you can write questions and ask, for example, where they got that vanity or those towels and they'll answer if they know.  There's also usually links to things like the tile or flooring used. 

Plus, they make it really easy to embed stuff in blog posts. 

Traditional Bathroom by Edina General Contractors REFINED LLC
 
I also downloaded and installed the Ikea App.  In Baltimore, we have two Ikeas in easy driving distance, and the Ikea App lets you make a list (the website does the same) and will tell you whether the items you've put on your list are in the store.  When you are in the store, you can add items to the app and then when you go downstairs, it tells you where to find them!  It saves stuff they didn't have for later. 

What are some good other apps? Are any of the home improvement store apps any good? 

Welcome!

A number of years ago I started a wedding blog because I didn't feel like there were enough bloggers getting married in Baltimore.  It turns out, I feel the same way about home design blogs where people have more than 1500 square feet or rooms that are more than 12 feet wide.  

We've lived in Baltimore for more than 5 years now, but we've never lived in a rowhome - we've had two different apartments converted out of older, larger, wider houses.  So follow along while we go from 7 closets to 2.