One of the hardest decisions we had to make when buying our smaller home involved our bedroom furniture. It was the first major furniture purchase we made as a married couple, and we really wanted to keep it. Here are some pictures of the set from the house we sold last year.
The first time we walked through what would become our new home, I stood in the doorway of the master bedroom and tried to mentally place our furniture. I thought we would have to give up the bench at the end of the bed. Other than that, I was in denial.
We were viewing several houses that day, and we didn’t take any measurements in the bedroom. On our second visit, we did some measuring. We thought it could possibly fit if we put the bed between the windows. And placed the dresser on the wall by the door. We talked about a few changes that would save us some valuable inches. Instead of the bi-fold closet doors that opened into the room, we were going to install sliding doors. We wanted this house and we wanted it to work.
We closed and took possession of our new home about a week prior to moving out of our previous house. This would give us time to remove the interior doors on the main level and paint the trim and walls before the new carpet was installed. It was scheduled to be installed the day before we moved in. We, of course, underestimated the amount of time needed for all this painting and did not get the spare bedroom done.
While painting in the master bedroom, we continued to talk about how the furniture was going to fit. We went back to our current home and measured the furniture again. We knew it would be tight, but were still in denial.
Moving day came, and reality started to seep in. We had the bed placed between the windows, with one of the large nightstands in the corner. There was no room for the nightstand on the other side of the bed, so it was on the wall next to the closet. The bench, of course, did not fit and it was put in the basement, along with the boxes, tubs, and other pieces of furniture that had no current home. It was a tight fit walking between the closet and the bed, and this was before the sliding doors were installed. We put a small 12-inch wide nightstand on the bathroom side of the bed, one that we had in our guest room at our previous home, and called it good. For a while.
Over the next week or so, we moved the dresser and the bed to different walls and positions, but they were worse, and we went back to the original. It was crowded, and I bumped my hips on the footboard more times than I can remember. After measuring the headboard and footboard and seeing we could gain about a foot of space just by removing the bedframe, we finally gave in and made the decision to replace the bed. If we could have just removed the footboard, we probably would have tried that first, but it is one piece, so all or none. We had a spare queen frame, so we put our mattress and box springs on it. On a Saturday in mid-May, 5 weeks after moving in, we brought our bedframe to a local thrift store for donation.
We moved the bed to the outside wall so that it was parallel to the windows and closet. We squeezed in the large nightstands on either side of the bed. It felt cramped, but we still had most of our bedroom set.
Over the next few months, the closeness of the nightstands started to become an issue. There was NO space between them and the bed. The frame was lower than the original, and I hit my head on the nightstand a few times. We had a set of smaller end tables in the living room, and I swapped them out one day when Andy was not there. (I use sliders to move the furniture around. LOVE them!) We were not sure we liked the nightstands in the living room, but we knew we liked the smaller end tables in the bedroom. The nightstands would remain in the living room for months to come.
None of our original furniture is in this picture. We found a headboard that will be attached to the wall at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. It is in the ‘Projects’ section of the garage, waiting to be refinished.
The dresser was another issue. As I said earlier, we removed all the doors before moving in, planning to replace them a few at a time. Putting in a bedroom door would make the wall where the dresser was extremely crowded. The door would hit the dresser when opened. We couldn’t move the dresser down any farther, it was already at the door frame for the bathroom.
Wanting to keep our dresser, we had to come up with something else for a door. After spending a lot of time on Pinterest, looking for door options that save space, we decided on a barn-style door and installed it in early December, eight months after moving in.
Here are a few pictures of the door. It is not in the true barn door style because it does not have the cross piece and trim. We plan to hang pictures on the hallway side of the door.
Through this moving and downsizing process, we have had to part with various pieces of furniture. Pieces that had been in the family for years and new pieces that we purchased in our last home.
Giving up our bed frame and splitting our set was one of the hardest decisions, even though it was the right decision. The nightstands were moved to the basement, and are currently waiting to see if they will fit when we get other STUFF out of the way and set up the family room.
Peggy Staver, the author of this blog, is a freelance copywriter specializing in outdoor recreation and hospitality. You can contact her at PSCopywriting.com. The majority of photos are taken by Photography by Andreas. Visit his portfolio here.
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