Moving Office and Bedroom Doors for More Functionality

Moving office and bedroom doors for more functionality allowed us to redesign the living room and kitchen walls.

man pointing toward built-in on living room wall

THE TV PLACEMENT WAS NOT FUNCTIONAL

This honestly all started with the TV. Yes~ Can you believe how much our love for entertainment rules our lives and decisions? All kidding aside, we had such a difficult time figuring out the best area to place our TV. And as a bit of a side note defense, we do spend much of our TV time on educational YouTube type videos, which is why we also have our own channel as well!

Now that we got that out of the way, I’ll get back to the TV placement. We initially placed the TV in front of the living room windows. But that was an awkward placement as the TV covered most of our long colonial style windows looking out to the front yard. Living in a small cottage makes designing a space difficult. This is especially when your living room and kitchen are essentially all in one large room and not separated.

There was no other dedicated area to place the TV. This is where we had to get creative and design (and build) our own space that was more functional.

THE DESIRE FOR MORE FUNCTIONALITY

As Nate was sitting on our couch in the living room, he was bothered by how the office door was right in front of him and then he would have to turn his head slightly to the right to view the TV. He has more of an eye for space functionality, design, and just how it feels way better than me. I usually just adapt to whatever space I’m in or provided. Must be the missionary in me, when we had to just appreciate and make do with what we were given.

man pointing toward tv on living room wall

I watched him struggle for months trying to figure out the best solution to make the living room and kitchen much more functional and to just make sense really. He talked for a while about moving the office and bedroom doors closer together so we could have a more dedicated living room and kitchen wall space.

I didn’t like the idea at first, and as always when it comes to change with me. It just seemed weird to have the only two bedroom doors we have right next to each other. But, it was the only solution Nate had in our small space. There didn’t seem to be many options to go with. And he is much better at designing and feeling out a space than me, so I decided to just trust him and try it out.

sketch of built-ins for small cottage — Nate’s Sketch

CREATING LIVING ROOM AND KITCHEN FUNCTIONALITY

Again, it was like taking a step back in some ways as we had to remove drywall that we worked so hard to install to rearrange the layout of the bedroom doors. There was also a long closet that ran in between both rooms with access to each closet from different areas in each room. We had to remove that closet because the doors for each room would now be placed in those spots.

Once we moved the doors next to each other, we could work on functionality for the living room wall and then also the kitchen wall. The plan was to build built-ins on both sides. In the living room, we planned on building an entertainment center built-in for the TV and cabinets at the bottom to hide the wires from the TV and internet router. In the kitchen we planned on building another handmade built-in for a pantry. That would help a lot with storage space for the kitchen as our space is really so small.

LEARNING TO BE CREATIVE

We have had to learn to be creative with our small cottage to maximize the functionality for our every day needs and comfort. It’s so challenging to come up with these ideas when there is limited room to figure out a design that would work best for these designated spaces.

Project after project though we are making progress and it’s turning out really nice. Hopefully we don’t have to continue to work backwards much more in the future and can work on solidifying our plans and design more permanently so we can actually finish our renovations soon!

man pointing toward built-in sketch on living room wall

It has been quite a journey designing our small space. Thankfully Nate has such an eye for spaces and is able to come up with good ideas and then execute on them with an actual build strategy. I’m just here on the sidelines, working my W2 job to support the costs, make the videos and write these blogs to document the journey. And of course, to cheer him on!

My hope is that you are inspired to tackle your own journey and projects with a creative and courageous approach. Failure is not an option, it’s only the launching pad to progress. Otherwise, you will just be sitting there with your would’ve should’ve could’ve stories as I often do myself. That’s why I dedicate so much time to document our story with you. I’ve had my fair share of being the would’ve should’ve could’ve queen!

Materials & Tools We Used

Cordless Drill: This tool is used for many tasks and mainly for this blog to remove the screws in the drywall.
Multi Tool: Nate used this tool to cut through the drywall and remove it.

This post may contain affiliate links.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

man pointing toward built-in on living room wall and sketch of built-in

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.