Showcase Sunday- My Hallway

Living in a small apartment as I do, especially one without built in storage spaces (as in, no built in closets), one needs to take advantage of all possible space there is to store things. One might not think that my hallway qualifies as a room, but it is one of my most space efficient rooms, and hence I'll show you what we did to it, transforming an empty hallway into a great storage solution. 

 

This is the view of the hallway from the far end. As I take this picture, behind me is our little bathroom. To my right, but unshown in this picture is a sink. Behind the curtain on the right is our living room, seen last week over here.

At the far end of the hallway is the door to the master bedroom.

Here is the little sink. The mirror is a hand me down from my mother. Under the sink we store our potty. used only in emergencies when both bathrooms are in use and 2 year old Lee can't wait any longer. The towel to the left of the sink is hung on a nail in the wall.

You see the part of the wall jutting out to the left? Right to the left of that, high up, is a homemade shelf.

It is resting on the doorjam and strong nails. See? We keep our dress up clothes (tied up in a satchel) and a spare blanket up there. As we have high ceilings and little storage space, we try to utilize the space above our heads as storage, keeping things out of eye sight but within reach.

The play purses hang from a hanger stuck in the wicker of this shelf.

This shelf is where we keep our toys. Running a playgroup from my home requires owning a lot of toys. I don't particularly enjoy having my toys on constant display, so this homemade curtain hung on a cheap wooden rod and attached to the shelf with cable ties was a genius idea. My husband's work. This wicker shelf was bought at a moving sale for 15 dollars.  

Behind the curtain you'll see lots of different toys. They're sorted by type and kept in dollar store baskets as well as shoe boxes.

To the right of the toy shelf from a wire loop, we hang a toy stroller. This stroller takes up loads of room, even when folded, so it hangs up so as to not take up the room on the shelf. Its held together with a ribbon.

On top of our wicker shelf we added an extra shelf from a recycled board (dumpster find). The board is attached to the shelves securely and we store various odds and ends up there, from stuffed animals to my baby wrap.

I have many shoes. Many is an understatement. Having already used too much space to store our shoes, the rest of my shoes get hung on nails from the wall, to the right of the curtain leading to the living room.

We have a hose used for changing the water in our fish tank. When not in use, the hose gets rolled up and stored on this makeshift hook.

We also keep our spare baby gate (hand me down) and baby gym (hand me down) in this corner of the hallway. The door nearby is usually open and it hides these big bulky items.

The curtains were quite simple and cheap to pull up. No special equipment, no drilling  necessary. The curtain "rod" is a wooden broomstick bought for a dollar. It is held up via nails and wire.

See?

The curtains are shower curtains that we got for free.

Here is the view of  our hallway from the opposite direction. I apologize- even with the door closed, there is still a glare.

Hope you enjoyed this tour of my hallway.

Next week, the master bedroom.

Do you utilize your hallway, or is it merely a way to get from one living space to another?