Making room for #2

Now that baby #2 (as we affectionately call him - no name yet) is over halfway done, I am seriously considering where we are going to put him. Actually he is not the problem. It's more of where to put all of our stuff that is already occupying what will be Miles' space. For ease of explanation we will call that the "guest room".

When expecting Miles we played the whole musical room shuffle. It required A LOT of purging. I threw away, gave away or sold boxes, and boxes. Everything that was once in the current nursery went either in the office, or guest room in order to make space for all the new nursery stuff. And for those of you without children - the babies themselves do not take up much room, just all the things they need seem to require a lot of space. Anyway, now we have to clear out the guest room that for months has been more of a storage facility than bedroom.

Since Miles will be moving there, I feel like we should move our things out of the guest room so that he can have his own room. After all, he will be a "big boy" - a whole 18 mos old. Miles is inheriting the current dresser so that baby #2's clothes can go in the nursery with him. You would be absolutely amazed at how much stuff is in the dresser, under the bed, and in the closet of our guest room. All of our "off-season" clothing and accessories (hats, shoes, bags, etc), the gift wrapping center, the tangles of cords and electronic pieces that mason accumulates, luggage, games, workout equipment, coats and seasonal home decor are stored in that room - as well as the knick-knacks that I can't find another place for. So that brings me to our current problem: where are we going to put all that stuff? The closet in the office is absolutely full, as is the one in our bedroom. There are a few shelves here and there through the house that could be better facilitated but nothing to store the magnitude of items that are being housed in the guest room.

The only solution that I have come up with is to create more storage space. It's not a very creative idea, but I figure it will be a well deserved investment. The only room that has available wall space is in the office. At one time, we had two "working" desk areas, but now our PC has moved to the living room with the TV. There is a bookshelf that I hope to incorporate into Miles' new room, the guest room. So with both of those gone and some clever rearranging of the sofa, I think we could use the entire exterior wall of the office to turn into some sort of major storage area, maybe possibly a work area too.

Ideally I want an enclosed wardrobe and desk area. I have taken most of my ideas from IKEA. After we went to the store in Dallas a few months ago, I have been dreaming in IKEA. They make solutions for people with problems like ours - space challenge problems. They had an entire apartment for 3 people in 850ish square feet and I thought, "I could live here". That is what got me thinking that we don't need more space as much as we need to better organize the space we have. We also paid a visit to the new Container Store here in town. It fueled my new found desire for organization. The ELFA system I think would work but its problem is that it is made to use in an existing closet rather than building a closet in the middle of the room. My things wouldn't be enclosed - and I want all of it out of sight! I think we are going to be using a combination of "systems" to make this work.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here are a few images that have been the starting point for where I am hopefully going with this.
These are from IKEA:


This is most like what I am visioning - just not in black...and maybe with a few more doors to cover our stuff.


Picture a desk where the bed is here.


This is my favorite but I won't be able to use exactly this because we have a window we have to work around. I like that it is floor to ceiling - almost like it is a built in unit.
These next few are from the ELFA system at the Container Store. I like them but as you see they don't provide the containment that the wardrobes do.