Positive thought.

There's power in it, right?

It's a rainy Monday, my pants are about thisclose to going from the "I can still wear these, but wow, that's not comfy" to "OMG the waistband on my (formerly too big) pants is cutting off circulation to my entire lower body", and the third estimate on our bathroom/hot water heater remodel came back higher than anticipated.

I think I need to set this as my screen saver:

The bathroom is in pretty rough shape, so we need to do something about it STAT. Allen  agrees, but I think I'm going to have to trade subway tile for bead board on the bathroom walls, skip the frame-less shower and kiss my vintage-look fixtures and medicine cabinet goodbye. A total bummer, since those were things I was REALLY looking forward to and that make a significant difference on the esthetic of the room.

 The other thing I think we're going to have to lose? Our tankless water heater (sob), and as a byproduct, the new closet that our tankless hot water heater was going to provide.

While I'm really bummed about the loss of new storage, I'm really more sad about the loss of unlimited hot water, especially with the lil' bit coming in September. As it currently stands, we have a hot water deficit at our house...for instance, if you run a load of laundry, you have to wait 30-60 mins before you'll be able to get hot water anywhere else in the house.  Including out of the tap. Which led to me heating the water for the neti pot (I'm sick and can't take any cold medication, so that seems to be my only option) in the microwave.

You can see why I might be just the teeniest bit worried about what we're going to do when we're running multiple loads of laundry a day.

But there's nothing I can really do to solve that problem. SO, I'm focusing on what I can fix--and that seems to be the storage issue.

SOLUTION 1:

Add a skirt to the console table in the family room and hide my sewing machine, fabric, etc under it, a la this fabulousness from Little Green Notebook:

That means, of course, that I'm going to have to find a place for the magazines that currently live on the bottom shelf of the console table.

SOLUTION 2:

This is a peek at the craft storage in the room that is going to be the nursery. Original plan was that this would move into the new closet. Some of this, admittedly, can be condensed...but I hate to throw any of it away. Seems like such a waste! It needs to find a new home (along with the magazines mentioned above).

This is half of the built in storage in our family room. The cupboards currently house books, photo albums, serving pieces that don't have a place to live in the kitchen, and many, many movies. That we don't watch. Because we don't have a VCR and they are VHS. 

Obvious solution here: take the tapes to Half Priced Books.  Find a place for the books in the bookshelf. Take the remaining ones to Half Priced Books or condense to one side of one cabinet.  Use the other half to store design magazines,  throwing away the ones I've already ripped tear sheets from, etc.

That leaves one entire cabinet for the rest of my craft supplies?

SOLUTION 3:

Figure out how to better use the cabinet underneath the telephone nook.

DISCLAIMER: that is not our statue. This picture was taken when we toured the house for the first time.

It's not a ton of space, but it's enough to make a difference.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated, blogfriends. I'm feeling a little bummed about this. Shouldn't the nesting instinct be settling in by now? :)