Making Room for Baby

Writing this now at 18 weeks pregnant with our second child, my mind is constantly evaluating our space.  I am asking myself and Trevor, "what's working?" "what's not working?" "what is within our ability/budget/skillset to change?". My first thought is, I would like a little extra storage.  While I think we can always live with less things, the 4 season nature of Vancouver leads to seasonal clothes needing somewhere to be stored.  We already struggle to find room for 3 sets of seasonal clothes and I fear for a 4th! 

Luckily we have 10 ft ceilings.  Ceilings that are not always used to their potential.  Case in point is our Master Closet that is in Theo's room.  At one point it must have had standard height doors on it, but we have always known it to have curtains.  Behind the bulkhead of the closet is finished drywall and shelving we can't access.  So we took the plunge and hired a handyman to knock out this wall and open up 6 feet x 2.5 feet of storage.

Here is the closet before...

Our Closet Before

Nothing makes you stop and reevaluate your minimalist efforts like seeing all your clothes piled on your sofa for 3 days.  After staring at this pile we managed to take 3 bags to the thrift store and 1 to the consignment shop.

Ugh

Everytime you open a wall, you always find something you wish wasn't there.

3 days of drywalling and an electrician moving a conduit later, we gained 6' x 2.5' of storage! Now our personal file boxes are not in Theo's shelving anymore and we have extra space for seasonal clothes.  Amazingly we haven't filled up the space yet but I'm sure it won't take long when baby arrives.