This past holiday season, my father-in-law came over to my house for the first time. I’m always a bit nervous the first time someone comes over, because our house is small and…unconventional. My design aesthetic could best be described as a cottagecore, folk-inspired, iSpy book. When someone comes over for the first time there is an initial few minutes where they look around the walls of my kitchen, taking it in. Even friends who have come over before pause a moment, because things are always in flux.

Cozy, comfortable, homey, cute, cottagecore are all words I’ve heard people use to describe my house. But when my father-in-law came over and looked around my house, he noticed something different. It was the first time someone understood what was actually happening in my house.

“Everything on the walls is useful."

Below I talk about how I try to make the most of our small space, followed by a section of pictures of my actual house. This email is too long to read in your inbox, so you’ll need to click the title to view the full article.

Making the Most of Space

Form Follows Function

When I was an undergrad one of my art teachers1 would drill specific quotes to ensure we remembered a concept. One quote that is still rattling around my brain is:

“Form Follows Function.”

- Louis Sullivan

Sullivan was an architect and the idea here is pretty straightforward; the design of a building (or in my case the design of my house) is directly informed by its intended purpose.

In small spaces, you have to truly live with your stuff. You can’t hide everything behind closed cabinets and closets; your consumption habits are visible for everyone to see. In order to keep your living space from feeling like a warehouse, you have to make beautiful forms out of functional items. You have to commit to a lived in design aesthetic.

Because I have four kids, approximately 1000sqft living space, a single income, and prioritize homemade food I will always look like a maximalist. Because I almost exclusively buy secondhand, and almost everything I buy for my house is a functional kitchen or homemaking related item, my aesthetic will never look modern. Because my house is small and the windows are updated, it will never look like a traditional farmhouse.

Instead, I lean into a vintage, whimsical, cottage, folksy aesthetic. My house is really weird! I don’t fight it anymore, I actively choose to make it weirder and more functional.

Lean into your design constraints instead of fighting against them. It will inevitably make your house feel comfortable instead of cramped.

Financial Constraints

Living off a single income with kids requires a different way of thinking (I talk more about this here). I’m grateful we can make this work, but in our case it does require sacrifice and strategic thinking.

First, I can’t throw away or donate things just because we’re not currently using it. If my oldest grows out of a size 8 coat, I have to hang onto it for my next kid. There is a lot of stuff in my house that, if we were in a higher income bracket, we would probably not hang onto2. I reuse ziploc bags and tinfoil. I have a massive collection of glass jars to reuse. I fold up tissue wrapping paper to reuse and keep it in a gift bag in a closet.

Second, if I see something at a good price that I most likely will need, I tend to buy it. I have back-ups of essential kitchen equipment that I’ve picked up at yard sales (an extra food mill, jar lifters, heavy stainless stock pots, etc.) because if mine breaks, I can’t afford to buy a new one at retail cost. I also can’t afford to wait until one shows up in my price range because I will still need to be cooking and canning while I wait. I have to find storage for all those things (which is why in the pictures you’ll see duplicates and why I’ll have a whole post about equipment).

Third, if I see a good deal on a food I know we’ll eat, I have to take advantage of it, and I have to make space for it. This is why I constantly have empty jars and food grade five gallon buckets on hand (you’ll see lots of empties in the photos because we’re in the pre-summer lull). Again, I have to make space for and live with all this stuff. I can’t afford not to.

Four Dimensional Storage

In a small space, every single inch counts, even the walls and ceiling; every single surface of my house is fair game for storage space. I hang baskets from the ceiling, dry corn on hooks hanging from the bottom of a shelf, and have stolen my partner’s drill so many times to hang things he just bought me my own. If a shelf can fit in a space without impeding a walkway, it’s probably going to have a shelf.

I also try to use storage pieces for furniture as much as possible. I have two different cedar chests that we use for bench seating and storage. My china cabinet doesn’t hold china. Oversized notepads and a whiteboard live under my couch. Most furniture in my house is multipurpose, and I prioritize thrifting wooden furniture so it lasts longer.

Buy Me a Coffee

Get Creative

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the difference between cottagecore and the interior of a Cracker Barrel is color. I painted my kitchen pink, not just because it’s fun, but because the pink makes the random things hanging from my ceiling feel whimsical. I intentionally buy colorful knickknacks at the thrift store to distract from the more practical, boring things on open shelves. Color and whimsy help distract from the less exciting stuff.

I hide Halloween candy from my kids in the copper jello molds hanging on the wall. The ceramic pitcher above the kitchen sink on the window sill holds loose change. The mini crock on the shelf near the outlet by the couch is full of charging cords. You don’t have to use things for their intended purpose. Whimsy and practical aren’t necessarily antonyms.

The Floor Plan is Never Set in Stone

My fridge is not in my kitchen. For whatever reason, there is an awkward sized mudroom coming in my front door, which is right around the corner from my kitchen. When my now-five-year-old son was three, he kept stealing eggs3 out of the fridge and we had to move it to a place we could put a baby gate up (he had figured out the fridge lock).

Most people would balk at the idea of putting their fridge outside their kitchen, but this layout works phenomenally well for us. We’re in the process of moving our washer/dryer into the kitchen now (where the fridge used to be), which will free up space for a new bedroom at the back of the house4.

Rules about layout and what can/can’t go somewhere are arbitrary. You can put your fridge by your front door, hang a clothesline in your hallway, and have your washer/dryer in your kitchen if that is what works for you. You’re the one who has to live in your house, after all. You can break the rules if they’re not working for you.

Store It Where You Can See It

I don’t know if you’ve noticed5, but I’m actually a pretty aggressively Type B mom. Executive function is not the strong suit of anyone in our household. This means, if we can’t see it there is a good chance it might as well not exist. I store as much as possible in the open.

Open shelves, cabinet doors removed, glass containers, hooks on the wall, countertop baskets, all are essential on my quest to use the stuff we have with as little waste as possible. When I’m filling my open shelves, I put the least-ugly things at eye level. The worst offenders are relegated to the bottom shelf (in my case food grade five gallon buckets). Never underestimate the effect of putting the nice stuff at eye level, it helps distract from the rest a lot more than you’d think.

For the Things You Really Need to Hide…

If you spend a majority of your day in the kitchen, you don’t want to be staring at the plastic dish soap bottle on the counter. No one wants to see your toilet paper back stock, and I have yet to find a way to make the reusable glass lunch containers (with their never-matching lids) look like anything but a disaster.

If there is something that I truly need to keep out of sight I always store it as close as possible to the place it will be used. For example, all my back stock of toothpaste is in a basket in the bathroom cabinet. The dish soap lives under the kitchen sink. The back stock of laundry detergent lives on top of the dryer. I have found that if it isn’t right where it will be used, no one in my house (including me) is going to be able to remember its location.

It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

The layout of my house and storage solutions you see today were completely nonexistent when we moved in. It takes time to adjust your house to match your goals. When we decided to get more serious about prepping, I had to reconfigure our house, literally. As we’ve added kids, I’ve had to do the same. There were awkward growing phases and times where I was mortified at the idea of having people over while things were in process. That’s inevitable.

My house has been a work in progress for almost three years, and I’m certain it will remain that way for the rest of my life. There are certain pieces I’m sure will never move, the rainbow colored turkey platter over the kitchen sink will almost surely be a core memory for my children, for example. But there are unpainted walls, mismatched plates, and dozens of other little idiosyncrasies that will eventually (as time and money allow) get resolved.

Buy Me a Coffee

My Actual Real Life House in Pictures

Here are some candid images of my house, particularly my pantry storage and kitchen, with some of the random things I’ve done to make the space work.

Where Should You Start?

If you are feeling very overwhelmed (or a bit lost) on where to start with pantry and food storage specifically, I’ll be writing my next piece on it. So don’t panic! You’ve got this, friend. In the meantime, start walking around your house and apartment. Look for dead zones and think about how you can transform them into usable space.

Posts on Deck:

I don’t commit to a consistent posting schedule, because I have four kids, a house to run, and this newsletter is donation-based.

However, these are my upcoming planned posts. Each one will discuss a category of food with the appropriate storage requirements and the specific items I keep on hand. I’ll circle back and link them here as they are published:

• Pantry Rules, pt. 1: Well They’re More Like “Guidelines” Really…

• Pantry Rules, pt. 2: Big Goals in Small Spaces

• Getting Started on Pantry Planning

• Pantry Rules, pt. 3: How to Use It All

• Top Shelf: Vinegars & Alcohol in the Pantry

• Cooking Fats & Oils: Why I Don’t Use a Lot of Olive Oil

• Spices & Salt: Keeping Things Interesting

• Dehydrated Foods: It’s More Than Just Orange Slices

• The Big Four: Long-Term Storage Rules

• Baking More Than Just Bread: Categories to Consider

• Nuts, Seeds, Butters: A Complicated Storage Situation

• Grains: The Ultimate Filler

• Beans: What I Keep and How I Store Them

• Shelf of Shame: Why You Should Have a Shelf of Convenience Food

• Canning: When Is It Worth It and How to Not Die

• Freezing Food: What Is Even In There?

• Why You Should Be a Couponer: Paper Goods, Cleaning Supplies, & Toiletries

• $40 Grocery Challenge: My Bare Minimum Grocery List

• The Kitchen Equipment Edition: Essentials and the Back-Up Team

I’ll be sharing more practical details about how I stock my pantry going forward, so subscribe if you want those newsletters in your inbox.

This work will always be free, however…

…this newsletter does take time and if you would like to support my work financially, I have a ko-fi set up. Every dollar goes straight towards keeping my family afloat while we work to pay down debt and raise four beautiful, wild kids.

Buy Me a Coffee

And at the end of the day? I’m so glad you’re here. Keep moving forward, friends. There’s always hope, but it takes work to keep that hope alive. You’ve got this.