Sneak peek

There are now twice as many sinks in the house as there were when we moved in (exactly a year ago!)

Things are looking up!

Yesterday we went to home depot to pick up some stuff for the bathroom sink, and since he couldn't find what he needed there to install the sink, M. moved on to his next project, overhead lighting.  After a few sexist comments from the salesperson about how pregnant ladies have the easy job of lying on the couch and snuggling the baby, we picked up all of the stuff we needed, came home, moved a freezer into the basement (take that, salesguy) and I turned 12 lbs of tomatoes into sauce while M. disappeared upstairs.  I eventually went to bed, and this morning, I woke up to overhead lighting in the office.

We opted for four inch LED halo fixtures.  This is the part where I should tell you all about what we installed, how we installed it, etc. but this is my blog and I didn't do any of the actual work. So, marry a person who can install overhead lighting and then go to bed. That is how you do this.  The only two parts I "helped" with (besides finding the correct little pieces in the tiny piece aisle at Home Depot) were picking out the 4 inch halo fixtures (which are listed for accent or task lighting, but the ceiling in this room is pretty low, and the room is pretty tiny) and offering my opinion on which tiles should get the lights inserted in them. 

The reason it was a question of tiles is because the housings needed to have three inches of clearance between them and the insulation, and as you get further back in the room, the insulation is closer and closer to the tiles.  Even though the housings were not LED specific, so that recommendation was probably excessive for LEDs.  But fire safety is important, so all of the housings went towards the front of the room where they had 3". The desk might still require a task light but we have a few of those to spare. 

If anyone needs specific instructions, leave a comment and I'll have M. get back to you. But it's so exciting to have the switch function in this room (it didn't even switch an outlet before) and I'm really psyched to get my sewing on because it will be so much easier! 

Nursery Furniture

I always thought nursery décor and furniture would be the fun part of having a baby.  Turns out, I find decorating anything, even a tiny, adorable room for a tiny human, exhausting.  There are tons of cribs out there but I didn't like any of them.  There are tons of gliders but none of them are comfortable.  There are tons of changing tables but none of them MAKE ANY SENSE.  So.  We have finally purchased a glider, which means we have the last piece for the nursery purchased.  The crib and glider should come in the next few weeks, and once the sink moves out of the nursery, we should be in pretty good shape. 

So here is what we ended up going with:

Pali Imperia Crib - I didn't like most of the cribs that had a higher back and a lower front, or a lot of extra fanciness going on. The extra fanciness takes up a lot of extra space when you are filling a 7x9 room.  We were deciding between the BabyLetto Mercer, which has storage drawers, and this crib.  We ultimately picked this one because it had way less flex in the rails, and we are hoping the material will hold up to teething a bit better than the Mercer, but I've already pinned some teething guards. 

Haverty's Patrice Glider - I checked out Babies R Us and Great Beginnings for gliders, but generally felt underwhelmed.  We bought our couch from Haverty's and I was really pleased with their selection of reasonably priced rocker/glider recliners. Plus their sales staff tends to be really nice and not pushy and their delivery lets you stalk the truck all the way to their house and they have a good return policy.  This was the narrowest glider we could find that still looks like a proper armchair and will hopefully work in our living room later. 

 

(source)

Kallax Changing Table - we bought an Ikea Kallax 4x2, added three sets of Captiva Legs (we = husband), and will be putting a changing pad and other changing supplies on top. 

Dresser - We still have to sand and paint the dresser, or at least clean it up.  The coloring might actually work with the "mouse" colored glider, so I'm not 100% set on painting it anymore.  We'll probably have to wait until we get the glider anyway, so then we can make a decision. 

Hopefully I can get started on our mobile and some other projects soon, but right now most of my weekends have been taken up with errands and cooking all of the produce we are getting from our CSA and garden plot!

Elfa Office

As a housewarming present, my sister gave us a gift card for Elfa shelving from the Container Store.  We were originally planning on using it to reconfigure one of the closets, but with the baby coming, we are losing our guest room and so we wanted to rearrange our office so the setup is slightly less awkward for guests.  We also needed better storage options than the current way the desk in there is set up.  We went to the Container Store website and picked this option to purchase as a kit.  It was college night on Sunday night, so we headed to the store knowing they wouldn't pull custom Elfa at the event, but I had called earlier to ask if they had the kit in stock and was told they had everything in stock. Then we got there, they told us that a kit doesn't technically exist, but we sadfaced them about driving all the way from Baltimore to Rockville and they very very kindly agreed to pull it for us.  We did make a modification which resulted in losing a shelf, but the office is so short another shelf would have been too crowded.  We also can reconfigure our existing Elfa a bit now as well and might get more room that way. 

This is the new desk setup, currently still over our futon, which will be moving to the other end of the room once we have gotten the desk out of the way. 

This set of Elfa will be moving into the baby's room, most likely with only the basket shelf (which has a closet rod attachment that we can use to hang fancy baby clothes, since the room has no closet), and two of the white shelves.  The third white shelf will move to Mark's desk above the monitor. 

This Elfa will probably stay the way it is, except that middle rod, which is part of their "back of door" solutions will be moving most likely to the baby's room or to the bathroom, depending on where we decide we need more storage.  This is my original set of Elfa, which I've had since college.  We have had it in four apartments, plus the house, and it has held up great.  It's about 8 years old and has been extremely versatile.  My hope is to get the craft area a bit better organized, maybe this weekend, and get all of the stuff moved over so we can get the desk out. Apparently Salvation Army will come pick up furniture, so that may be our best option for getting both the desk and the bookcase out. 

Progress

As such things go, we began the process of converting our guest room into a nursery.  Once the books were downstairs, the bed needed to go. The frame and mattress both went to different friends and yesterday M. started to assemble some of the furniture we got.  We decided to go with an Ikea Kallax unit to use as a changing table, so that has three sets of legs to raise it to a better height for changing.  The color scheme for the room is yellow, aqua, and white, with a sea life theme. 

On top of the Kallax unit are the drawers for our new bathroom vanity.  We decided, after getting extremely high quotes to redo the bathroom in it's entirety, that since the bathroom is in mostly good shape and we really just want a new vanity, to put in a new vanity.  First we have to have a plumber come in and insulate the pipes properly, and then we will need to install the vanity.  (I'm using the term "we" lightly, I think my responsibilities will include keeping M. company.)

So the big to-do list between now and October includes the following:

Nursery:

• Assemble crib (one it comes in)
• Make mobile
• Paint dresser
• Hang artwork
• Purchase glider
• Check windows/walls for lead paint
• Hang Elfa

Bathroom

• Clear out storage cubes
• Call plumber, have them repair pipes
• Install new vanity and sink

Office

• Install new Elfa desk
• Get rid of old desk
• Move old Elfa out
• Purge and organize crafting supplies

Misc.

• Radon inspection
• Make room for upright freezer in the basement
• Clear out shelving between closets
• Bolt everything to the walls

That's all that's on the list that I can think of for now, but things are starting to get awfully cute around here:

Bookcases

All three bookcases are up and all of them are filled with all of our books. 

We still have to bolt them to the wall, and there is room in the bottom for anything else we need to store. 

We have been in the process of clearing my grandparent's house for 6 months now, and on Sunday we will be getting new, taller bookshelves. So the living room has been rearranged. The Expedit unit that was holding the TV has moved to the dining room, and the TV is up on the wall. We've moved the couch down and the bookshelves are where the couch used to be. 

Having the couches facing each other creates a galley feel in our tiny house, but it's not so bad. 

We are getting a third bookcase to go in the middle to replace the dark brown one, but we started with two to see how it went. The third one needs to be modified for the air duct that is between the two bookcases, but M. assures me it will be an easy fix. 

The final plan is to have books on top and storage baskets on the lower shelves. We will also be moving our DVD collection to the third bookshelf when it comes, which will free up space under the window.

Curb Appeal

Today we finally tackled a few outdoor projects. We planted some seeds in the big pots that have been taking up backyard space for awhile, and moved them to the front.

It's not real fancy, but hopefully soon there will be actual plants in them. 

I also planted herbs in these herb planter boxes. I know they look really sad now, but I'm hoping they will be bushy soon. 

And we moved our deck box outside! M had to grind off some metal stakes that were embedded in the parking pad in order for the box to fit, but now that he owns his own bench grinder, he took care of it. 

We added a cable and a padlock to try to deter theft (unfortunately common in our neighborhood), and plan to keep our grilling supplies in it for easy cookouts. 

Finished!

Before:

We opted for a faux wood finish because M. had to putty so much of the front. We followed this tutorial: http://www.lucydesignsonline.com/2011/05/ive-been-to-gel-stain-hell-and-back.html?m=1

After the first coat of regulat latex paint:

Mid- gel stain:

After texturing the stain:

Drying before polyurethane:

First poly coat:

Finished!!!:

M. installed it while I was out today and it looks fantastic! I can't wait to start putting things on it. And clean up the fireplace a bit...

Upgrade

We've been keeping out workout stuff in an LLBean boat and toat bag for awhile, but I would like to be able to use the bag, so when I saw decorative "baskets" at Target last weekend for $15, I picked one up. 

Before

After!

Ideally we would have something that made the yoga mats less visible, but I've been looking since September with no luck. We might switch to keeping blankets in the bag and workout stuff in the storage ottoman. 

Wake Up

Yesterday our new alarm clock arrived. We've been using a lamp on a kitchen timer for a couple years, and finally sucked it up and bought a Philips Wake Up Light from Costco. 

The kitchen timer worked well but the alarm was hard to adjust. My alarm clock has been broken for awhile anyway, so I was excited for this one. The best part is the alarm time has a +/- feature! So if it's set for 6:15, you hit the minus button to set it for 6.  

The screen brightness was also a huge issue with my last alarm clock and this one has a high-medium-very low setting. So hopefully it won't keep me up. 

It looks a little too fancy for my nightstand though. I may have to do some clutter busting. 

Updates Lately

Posting has been light lately mostly due to technical difficulties, because Blogger in Internet Explorer is now refusing to allow me to upload photos from a URL so I can't show you some of the cool stuff we'd like to be doing, and we haven't actually been doing that much cool stuff on our own. 


The biggest things we did over the weekend were sort through my grandparent's house, and work on the mantle.  My grandmother died before Christmas, so we've been trying to get the house ready to rent or sell, and that includes cleaning out a garage and storage room full of my grandfather's tools.  As part of being married to a guy who likes to build stuff, I do not turn down free tools.  So when M. showed me the giant overflowing box of stuff that he was planning on taking home, I told him to just get a second box and that we would find space for whatever he thought we needed.  As I carried in TWO giant outdoor extension cords on rollers, I regretted that only very slightly, because for the most part, he picked items that we will actually need/use and that are in good shape. 

I, on the other hand, have acquired a great deal of my great-grandmother's china and have to figure out where to put it.  I think we know who is the less practical family member.  There are a few pieces that we came home with that I'm really excited about, like this vase which was hand painted by my great-grandfather. He used to take a lot of ceramics classes when he was recovering from a bad stroke, so he painted a lot of ceramic Christmas trees and pumpkins, but I didn't know he had done any vases, and this one is in my colors, so I was really excited that my aunt had unearthed it. 

We also acquired a lot of books.  Because we are crazy people who believe there is no such thing as too many books.  Actually, crazy people are the ones who believe there is such a thing. 


After we unloaded the car on Sunday, M. moved the car out of the parking pad and got to work sanding the mantel.  He's got it almost down to the wood, and while we'd like to stain it, it just has so many parts that need to be patched that we are worried it won't take the staining well, and there are some parts that the paint is not coming off of.  The jury is still out on color, but I think a natural color that is a few shades darker than the walls will work nicely.  Everything else in the room is a dark brown, so that is probably what we will end up with, but I'm wondering if there is any way to do accents or a two-tone look.  (Tuxedo look?) We'll keep you posted!

Garden

Last Friday, I mailed off our renewal of our community garden plot - except this year, we are switching from the City Farm at Light and Heath St. to the City Farm at Charles and Heath, which is all of two blocks closer to our house. However, it's half the distance, so it feels justifiable, and we are upgrading to a plot that hopefully will get a lot more sun, so that will be nice and maybe prove fruitful. 

What are we going to plant this year?  Well, last year we had very good luck with Roma tomatoes and I had a lot of fun making my own pasta sauce and pizza sauce, so we are definitely doing Romas. We also had excellent luck with small Japanese eggplants, which were fruitful and delicious, so I think we will do those. We don't do squash because of the squash borers. I think this year I will grow cucumbers, even though my husband doesn't particularly care for them.  We had excellent luck with our beets last year, so we will be doing those again, and I think this year we are going to plant a lot more greens, specifically kale. 

Spring has Sprung!

March is always weird here in Maryland, and the weather oscillates between springly sixties and oh-my-god-this-winter-will-never-end-it's-so-cold.  But! Daylight savings time means we can get some projects done in the evenings, and soon our weekends are freeing up as well. So it's time for some Spring To-Do listing!


Checking out our house to dos, there are a number of outdoor projects that have been put on hold that we plan to tackle this spring.  Spring is also when we were planning on redoing our upstairs bathroom and possibly build a deck, so we need to start calling contractors. 


Outside:

• Paint side and rear door - I no longer have any desire to paint the front door, but we do need to paint the side door and the rear door is pretty ugly.
• Install doorbell
• Weed front sidewalk/steps
• Add something decorative to the left of the steps
• Add window boxes
• Clear excess plant pots, etc. from parking pad
• Powerwash cement in side alley
• Remove concrete post and wall (phase 2)

Master Bathroom

• Renovate to add double sinks, narrow door, large medicine cabinet, heated tile, insulate wall behind sink to avoid frozen pipes, resurface tub. 
• Build cubby into wall behind shower for additional storage
• Replace radiator with exhaust fan
• Hang curtains
• Spray paint washcloth basket - I made a very sad attempt at this once using acrylic paint and it did not come out well, so we've been waiting for it to be nice enough outside to spray paint

We are also going to be doing some large scale spring cleaning.  When putting away my winter outfits, I'm going to have to admit to myself that I have a very large number of sweaters and I wear like, four of them, and I'm also going to have to downsize my hoodie collection from four to perhaps two.  I'm considering consignment as an option for my nicer pieces that I haven't worn, rather than donating them, but that means storing them through the summer to consign at the beginning of the fall. 


I am also continually downsizing my considerable fabric collection, but recently learned of an opportunity to donate homemade baby quilts to children who are taken from unsafe homes by CPS here in Baltimore City, so I'm hoping maybe my mom and my sister, who have been sewing together recently, might be interested in a little quilting party to help me stash bust and do some good. 

New mantel!

Our fireplace, sad and mantle-less.

A mantel has been on our to-do list since we moved in.  I looked at a few tutorials, but the first time my friend Kelly came over, she commented, "we have an extra mantel."  Four months later, we finally got measurements to them and she and her husband confirmed the size of their mantel.  So we took our corolla the five blocks to their place and tried to get this bad boy in the car.   

It took several tries.

 It may have gotten a bit ridiculous. 

 But! We got it home and here it is, in front of the fireplace, fitting perfectly.  I was absolutely thrilled when we first saw it, since I was expecting a plain, generic mantel, but it's beautiful and fancy.  I especially like how the center part comes to a point.  We are going to paint it and do some repair work.  We're not sure how many layers of paint are on it, but hopefully it's just one layer and can be sanded down pretty eaisly.  Ideally we would sand it and stain it to be wood-colored, but I think that it might be best to go ahead and paint it, but we aren't sure what color.  We could go with the same espresso brown as most of our other furniture (does Ikea sell black-brown paint?) or possibly the same latte color as the walls in the living room. 

Anyone have any color suggestions?

Fireplaces

As we buckle down to work from home today, I'm at my desk between the front window and the fireplace.  As much as I don't want the annoyance of having a fireplace and was happy ours wasn't functional, sometimes it would be nice to sit by a crackling fire. 

We started talking about gas fireplace inserts.  Given our fireplace has the gas vent from the hot water heater and the HVAC, we could tap into them to vent a gas insert, so the only question is finding one that is an appropriate size and deciding it is worth the $1200. 

This one actually has pretty good dimensions, doesn't need to vent, and can be installed as a zero-clearance fireplace.  I don't know what that means.  It needs 15" behind it though, and we don't have that, so I guess we would be looking at somehow building out our fireplace for it. 

I'm a bit more inclined to go with something that would actually just go in front of the fireplace if we have to build out anyway.  This guy is much cheaper and the right height, plus we wouldn't have to build a mantle.  At 13" deep, it would only creep out about a foot, so not significantly more than our existing fireplace cover, which we could get rid of.  I can't decide if it would look cheesy though, since we did see a few houses with something similar and it did look odd. 

There are also electric options.  They are cheaper, safer, and easier to install.  However, they are not real fireplaces, they are well decorated space heaters.  I kind of like the idea of something big like this:

which would look fairly substantial in front of the chimney (our old place had a massive, impressive mantle that we did really like.)  But ultimately, I don't think it would suit us.    

Have you ever seen a standalone fireplace design you liked? Where can we get an 8" deep insert for our fireplace? 

Door - done!

The (inside of the) door is done! My husband painted it this weekend. He also applied cling film for privacy, which I really like. The old curtains were hard to clean and a bit blah, and these are more fun and less bulky. 

The outside of the door and the threshold still need to be painted, but we need the weather to perk up before we can tackle that. 

It is snow on.

Yesterday, we both got sent home from work early due to the snow.  I was driving and was intimidated by the snow in the alley, so I parked on the street.  Which meant this morning, I went downstairs to clear the parking pad so that we can park in it tonight without having to clear it.  This is what I opened the door to:

Fortunately, the 5-6 inches of snow we got is really light and fluffy and extremely easy to move.  The only problem is there aren't a lot of places for it to go. Ten minutes later:

We ran out of ice melt yesterday, so we have to pick up some more tonight.  I think I will generally try to park on the street, because it was actually easier to clear the parking pad than to clear the car in the parking pad. 

We kept the taps open overnight and the bathroom heaters on, so hopefully no more freezing. 

Moving to matching

We received new towels as a housewarming gift, and now most of our towels work well with our green and brown shower curtain. 

I also put the washcloths in the red basket, which does not match but I am leaning towards spray painting or covering it in fabric.  I also have to find a new home for those crummy hand towels - possibly the basement or with our camping gear since I always wish we had a kitchen/hand towel with us. 

Community Association

We attended our very first community association meeting last night. It was extremely educational.  First of all, I do not ever want to be the lone guy who supports the 300 person megabar that is coming in.  Secondly, I learned that our community association signs MOU's with local bars and restaurants.


The point of the MOU seems to be to make sure that they are not going to destroy our community with having people come to park in the neighborhood and get drunk and break our stuff.  Since I spent last Saturday morning awake at 3am as a very loud fight happened right outside our window, I'm starting to see the concerns about larger bars, etc. coming into the neighborhood. 


I also learned that I can call 311 to complain about potholes, so they are about to get a large number of complaints about potholes in the bike lanes.  We also got to meet our local police officer, who is returning to the force after being hit by a drunk driver last January and a year-long recovery.  He seemed nice and I look forward to seeing him in the neighborhood.


The community association meeting was a bit demographically varied, between older folks who have lived here for twenty years, and the young guy who was the only one who was psyched for the open air beer garden they want to put in that holds 90 people.  (For the record, I'm only psyched if they serve vegetarian brats and cider.)  Unfortunately, when the young guy stood up, he got yelled at by a bunch of folks, demanding to know whether he was a member of the association, whether he was a homeowner, and how long had he lived there for. 


It was very interesting to listen to the discussion of the neighborhood, because we supported one bar coming in that is going to be pretty upscale and local foodie.  One lady asked what kind of food would be served and the owner listed a bunch of too-hip-for-me places and she said, "yeah, I don't know what those places are" and then he specified it as "new American" and a west-coast concept that originated in Northern California.  The new bar and the mega-bar are listed as having the same capacity, but the big issue with the mega-bar seems to be being built to hold 300 people, even though they have agreed to self-imposed limits of capacity. 


The most exciting news for us was that our local dive bar is going to be taken over by a local bar/restaurant which will be very cool.  I'm hoping that they will a) serve food and b) have vegetarian food, because our local establishments don't have a ton of vegetarian stuff on their menu.  I'm excited to go to another smaller meeting next week to hear what the new owners have to say.  This does concern me a bit from a gentrification perspective, and also because we moved to the area because I don't always want to pay $14 for a cocktail.  I'm also a little worried that the patrons who hang out down the street won't have anywhere to go if they get priced out of the neighborhood joints when they are sold, and doesn't everyone deserve a place where everybody knows their name?  However, none of those folks were at the community association meeting.

Single Car Living

Yesterday, I drove my husband to work, I drove myself to my first hearing in Essex, I drove back to my husband's office, took the bus from his office to my office, and then took the bus to court for an afternoon hearing. After the hearing, I got a ride home with a generous friend who works at the courthouse and lives around the corner.  My husband drove home from work and took the car to the shop so that the bumper could be repaired and picked up the rental car. 


All of this juggling was necessary because we are a single car family.  Normally, my husband would have just ridden his bike and I would have taken the car to the shop and picked up the rental.  However, it was 5 degrees outside when we left the house in the morning.  Biking to work in this weather was not advisable since we don't own any of the gear necessary to bike in 5 degrees. 


Being a single car family has its drawbacks.  Three years ago, we went down to only one car, and had only minor hiccups since then.  However, when my husband accepted a different job in June, things like riding his bike in the freezing cold or heavy rain or snow became a lot less possible with his different commute.  So it's hard on a day when I have to go out to the county and he needs the car to go to work. 


So far the inconvenience is not enough to require us to consider purchasing a second car, but we may hit that point.  Unfortunately, the inconvenience of having a second car far outweighs the relative benefits, because we have to find it a parking space and do the parking pad shuffle.  All of this makes purchasing a super-tiny car really appealing, but I think, unfortunately, we may be past the point in our lives where we can buy a super-tiny car and expect it to suit our needs for the next ten years. 


Before we jump to buying a second car, we also need to consider the relative costs of actually using Zipcar, Uber, Lyft, and taxicabs.  Right now, I spend maybe $10 a week on alternative transport, which at $520 a year would still be less than the estimated $3158 spent on owning a car.  That doesn't even include car payments.  Yet we have a hard time actually spending any money on alternate transportation.


Maybe this math is easier for somebody who is making a car payment and sells their car - because if I was comparing spending $50 a month on a Zipcar and $300 a month on a car payment, the Zipcar seems like a no-brainer, but our car has been paid off for awhile.  I just have such a hard time justifying the cost of a Zipcar, and I'm very concerned that if I rented a zipcar to go to court for the afternoon and rented it for 3 hours, that would be the day the courthouse is insane and I end up going way over the time I rented it for and getting hit with a hefty fine. 


Honestly, the cost of a zipcar for an hour is cheaper than the cost of the Metro in DC, but that's not math that works in Baltimore where a bus ride is $1.60.  However, public transit in Baltimore is not reliable, so I can't always take a bus where I need to go. 


Does anyone else share a car and use zipcar, etc. to get around? How do you make it work? 

Happy Birthday j!

It's our nephew's birthday!!! He is a whole year old!  Here he is at 8 months, penned in by Ikea flat packs in our empty house. 

Parking Permit Renewal Time

Parking permits in Baltimore City are pretty reasonable - they are $20 a year for a residential permit, and each guest permit is an additional $20. However, when you consider the added expense of going to the parking authority twice with all the necessary documentation, the cost seems higher. This year we will be picking up our permit at one of our convenient community pickup locations.  It is annoying that they aren't pro-rated, so we bought new permits last January at our old apartment, then this year in August, and then we have to get new ones now as well, paying $20 per permit and guest permit each time.  However, they are useful and the City could get away with charging way more than they do, so I try not to complain about it too much. 

I'm very curious as to whether we would be entitled to get two parking permits for our address. Because we have a parking pad, usually they will only give you one street permit and the other person has to use the parking pad, but this varies by area. I want to find out if that rule would apply to us if we bought a second car, but I don't want to ask and alert anyone who hasn't noticed yet to the fact that we have a parking pad (it's a new addition, and the parking authority is really slow to update). We rarely would park two cars on the street, but when we've had two cars, we need to be able to shuffle them.

The most annoying part is removing the stickers. Some people just let them pile up on their windshield and show how long they've been living in Area 8/16/45/30 for, but we usually opt to remove the old and put the new one on.  Right now we have both our old permit and our current permit, which is because we needed both of them for moving day and then never bothered to remove the old one. Two is where I draw the line though, so they are both coming off.  Removal has always been annoying, and since we now have an easy way to run an extension cord out to the car, I want to try the blowdryer method of sticker removal. 

Let's get some shoes

The husband has been working on a shoe rack for my closet in the evenings recently. He repurposed the poorly built shelving from the closets when we moved in, and made me an awesome custom shoe rack.

The shelves are adjustable. 

He had to buy a few extra clips, and we'll need more wood to make additional shelves. 

The rack goes right in front of the furnace, which is a good use of otherwise totally wasted space. 

There is room for movement - we think we can add another two shelves.  It only fits half my shoes, but all my dress and summer shoes are in the closet in a bin because I wear them rarely.