Too many books.
Before: Usually clickers are on the sofas, but when we'd tidy up we'd put them in this box, on a horizontal surface, of which there are many because we need places to put all our things. |
Before: Coffee table with all the books, knitting, magazines, and just stuff. |
Before. |
Before. |
Before. |
A word on the coffee table. I chose this one on purpose. We used to have an old wooden trunk, which I liked fine and thought had the virtue of being a small horizontal surface, and thus limiting of what you could put on it.
But three things:
1. This room is square, and I wanted a square table for proportion's sake.
2. I love the idea of children and people in general having a big enough surface to spread out their coloring and Legos if little children are crawling on the floor and maps if they are looking something up. We were always running out of places for kids, especially, to rest their work.
3. When we eat a meal in here, I don't want things perching. {Bits and pieces are a big part of our life, as is needing to eat while watching an important game or maybe election results.}
So when I found this sturdy (you can, and the Chief often does, because that's how he is, just stand on it), solid coffee table in the (now sadly gone — where I also got our kitchen table) local furniture shop's clearance room, I pounced on it. The Chief a few years actually sanded off the dark, poly'd finish, as it had gotten too scratched, and now I apply beeswax polish to this much brighter surface. It stands up to everything and has a nice patina.
BUT.
Wow wee. Can you ever put a lot of things on it.
I have explained how for years our tidying consisted, often, in just piling the things neatly underneath, and that's fine, except a bit of a pain when it comes to vacuuming (you just end up putting the things on top of the table again, and the endless loop continues), and a little random.
But one day I saw a picture of an interior that was touting some other feature and I saw a box under the coffee table.
Light bulb!!
It just so happens that I had a box in the pantry. I could have a bigger box, or maybe another one this size. That would be cute. But truly, this is a revolution here:
After: Behold! |
After: Knitting in the basket. |
Just way better. |
Pause to try to convince Roxie that she can't come inside with that bone, no matter how impressive it might be.
No Roxie. |
No. |
sjohnston522 says
The box is not a remedy for Original Sin. Love it! A friend asked me awhile back if I thought she was too impatient to homeschool. I countered that I didn't think sending her kids to public school would turn her into a saint.
Our house is not big enough for a coffee table. But I would probably be in sore need of this idea if it were.
Tess says
“The box is not a remedy for Original Sin”—that made me laugh out loud! Too funny!
What a great, simple solution. It looks fantastic!
Lisa Rose says
Excellent idea, though I'm looking at some things piled up under a loveseat with a big space underneath. A box would be much neater.
We use an old trunk for a coffee table. It's pretty big and is full of games.
I am most amused by your “before” looking like our “after”. Talk about being too chummy with “whatever”!
Briana says
My coffee table actually has a self under it. 😀 But, I could further organize with a basket on those shelves instead of the piles. 😀
Lydia says
I am a huge fan of boxes and baskets under and on top of surfaces. It keeps me sane. I need some more for extra baby gear that oozes out into the living room and for stray books that are sort of being read but not really.
Can I ask about your living room paint color? It's lovely! I'm paint hunting at the moment and could use ideas!
_Leila says
Lydia, thanks! The paint color is Benjamin Moore Calming Cream on the trim/bottom and Guilford Green on the top. (Historic colors)
Breanna says
So possibly not for the coffee table, but maybe for the end table! Maybe for both! (I could put a kid-things basket under the coffee table, since that is theirs, and a taller-sided mama things basket under the end table, which is mine.) A brilliant idea that I've kicked around before, but I didn't think of having it be tall-sided and having it contain my things, instead of just desperately trying to put all the toy cars in one place. Genius!
armyofseven says
We just DIY remodeled our living room and got some decent furniture, and I THOUGHT about a coffee table, but we decided it would still really just be in our way, even though our family is starting to grow up a little. It turns out we're actually floor people, though. Even with plenty of comfy seating, most of us still choose the floor. 🙂
_Leila says
armyofseven, ours do things on the floor too, which is why I really wanted a big coffee table, actually — so that they could have a surface as they are sitting there… if that makes sense. Can't color on the rug…
Margo says
I like our coffee table to have books and coasters on it! It would look strange to my eye to be perfectly bare. Underneath are 2 boxes that, yes, slide when I vacuum if I feel like it (I figure the dirt can't get underneath the boxes – ha). One box is for library books and the other is for magazines because I don't find magazines aesthetically pleasing. My husband will often sweep some books off and plop his feet on the table when he reads to the kiddos at night. Fine with me.
I took a photo of the kids' room the other day because I have a new project in there that I want to blog about, so I thought of you and went ahead and took a picture of their messy shared desk, too. It's real life. I will blog about it soon! I am SO over perfection.
_Leila says
Trust me, Margo, there are always books on the table anyway 🙂 We are just terminally cluttery –which is okay. I agree it looks real and homey! It's just so great to have a place to put all the stuff. And to put the books when you want to eat or color!
Patty says
In the back of my mind, I am in the lookout for a nice big coffee table like this. I think it would make our LR more inviting for all the reasons you describe. We also currently have the trunk-as-coffee-table. 🙂
Pippajo says
I have a large, wide, and very sturdy basket I inherited from Mom that is the perfect depth for holding all sorts of things and still slides neatly beneath the coffee table. I believe Mom kept mittens, scarves and hats in it. I use it to house all of our DVDs, Wii games and ancient VHS tapes. I always suspected I was a bit of a genius when I came up with that idea all on my own and now I see I was right! Also, we've been dreaming about finding (or making) a large, proportionately-sized ottoman to use as a coffee table. Any thoughts on that? Just wondering if that was an option you rejected for some reason the public should know.
shwell says
this is a website I found very recently that has me thinking I could actually make a few things for around the house. Take a look.
http://ana-white.com/
_Leila says
Pippajo, I love the look of a big ottoman. But I knew we needed a table for games, coloring, and food. This isn't our living room, it's the den — family room!
@quiltbabe says
Books are both the bane of my life and its joy. There were always stacks on the end table, on the footstool…the books I'd not yet read that I daren't put in the bookcase to be forgotten or hadn't yet taken back to the library. Then I found some wonderful table lamps at JC Penny that have *bookshelves* for bases. Problem solved.
It is so much easier to keep the unread books in the Kindle organized…a nice folder called “new”.
Amy M. says
I don't have a coffee table, but this is a great idea. Also, when reading this post did anyone else think to themselves of Elizabeth Bennett saying, “Shelves in the closet? Happy thought indeed.” (This is not meant to be a knock on Auntie Leila, nor a likening of her in any way to Mr. Collins, but for some reason my brain made the connection and it made me smile, so I just thought I'd throw it out there 🙂
Bethany says
I love it how all your little boxes are cigar boxes. We have those too (thanks to my husband's nightly need for time alone with a cigar), and I'm always at a loss as to what to do with them but hate throwing them out. NOW I know how to use them!
Kathy says
Any flat surface in our house becomes a place to stack books and collect all kinds of assorted oddities. Whenever I get a room ordered and all surfaces restored to a state of clean I think of the lines from Out of Africa when Karen is referring to the Coffee fields and how the jungle is always trying to take it back – Yes, that is what keeping surfaces clutter free in my family is like.
Mrs. B. says
We have the same principle but done differently – a second-hand Ikea Leksvik coffee table with cubbyholes underneath. We can fit baskets of small things in there, or pile a few books. It's solid wood, and we really love that product line (they don't make much anymore, but Craigslist helps a lot).
Sadly, even with all the storage, the top of the table is STILL practically invisible because of toys, books, etc. – unless guests are coming, or it's Christmas or Easter!!
I feel guilty about all the clutter, since I'm home and ours is a tiny family… It feels so much more peaceful when things are in order! Though I would never put order before my kids' need to have fun and to create and re-create… Also, it seems I never put order before my own reading time, either hmmm… 😉 Time to review the housecleaning posts!!!
Kate says
I am a big user of boxes and baskets. I first learned of their merits from the Tightwad Gazette, wherein the Federal Express method was extolled over the USPS system – gathering everything in one place and then distributing is more efficient. So when de-cluttering, everything out-of-place goes into one basket, which gets sorted into smaller baskets/boxes which gets put away room by room. I use baskets and boxes (some which I've hammered together) underneath all kinds of furniture with useable space.
Regarding books, I felt like an accomplished parent when my 22yo daughter sent me the Anna Quindlen quote: “I hope to raise the kind of children whose idea of interior decorating is buying more bookshelves,” It's been a joke in our family that I'll always stop for a yard sale that has a bookcase in the driveway.
Melissa Diskin says
I love how sometimes you just need to find that One Thing to solve a myriad of problems. For me it was finally buying a china cabinet at a consignment shop to put it in my dining room. Which meant that I could unpack my nice silver and crystal after 10 years of marriage. Which meant that I could rearrange my linen closet, former repository of silver and crystal, into a repository of more than just a few linens. And putting my nice napkins and candles and things in the new cabinet it freed up drawers in my kitchen's freestanding cupboard. It's like “When you give a mouse a cookie,” in reverse!
To solve our remote issues, I use a small chest with drawers as an end table. Top drawers hold coasters and remotes. Bottom drawers hold random things like magazines I've written for, and various Bibles. Still waiting to find a good coffee table.
I'm an recidivist piler, but once I had a box like that that lived under the sofa. I was only allowed to have one pile, and it had to fit in the box, so if I had too much in there, I was bound by domestic law to clean it out before adding to it.
Melanie says
haha! about the tea cup. We have that in spades with still so many littles. I think I would have to chase after people all day to keep surfaces clear. I can only hope to shovel out from underneath. Funny about the tv remotes on the couch too, that's where ours always end up and so whenever you want one you have to start digging in the cushions. 🙂 I love the coffee table. We have a large round one, a very sturdy gift, and the top has suffered tremendously. I wonder how it would look with a strip of the varnish and a polish with some beeswax….
ayearinskirts says
we have a very small living room so no coffee table, and no end tables! But we use wooden tv trays for end tables and thus can move them around wherever we need them and it works well. We can't “store” anything in them and maybe because they aren't solid pieces of furniture the message of “this is only for a cup of coffee” seems to prevent them from attracting piles.
@DeliberateMom says
Love the box. Perfect.
See, we don't have coffee tables – I rather not create any kind of clutter problem.
I love seeing things transform and order coming into being. Feels (and looks) great.
Good work! Wishing you a lovely day!
xoxo
sibyl says
Alas, no room in our living room for a coffee table. (The front door is smack in the middle of the front wall, and thus the whole place becomes a thoroughfare.) However, if we ever have a coffee table, I'll use this idea!
Paula says
We are totally guilty of horizontal surface syndrome. We don't have a coffee table, but stuff gets piled… Dh threatens to throw stuff away… That gets the kids moving…although I' d never let him and they know it… Their rooms…eieiyei…
Marcia says
Your answer #2 is the recurring post-decluttering scenario over here. But we just have to keep trying. right 🙂
Our living room has long been converted to our homeschool room, so there's no coffee table to clear. But you know what, I'm going to put a box like that under the teacher's table!
Thanks, Auntie Leila.
Mamabearjd says
“Not a remedy for Original Sin.” So funny.
We have a peach crate under the coffee table for all of those books that are so important that they couldn't possibly rest on the shelf overnight. I may add a second. Galvanized troughs work well for books too, and towels, and lots of other things.
I want to be a minimalist, but have accepted that it is impossible. We read, we draw, we have projects. Life requires a certain amount of clutter.
Barbara says
I bought two matching wooden boxes a couple years ago from pottery barn for just that purpose. They were cheap, cheap — they were painted barn red and that must have been an unpopular color. I have a coffee table with glass panels, however, so it looks pretty junky to throw stuff in them. I have been using them for storage with some pretty blankets folded on top. I love your table. It fits our decor much better than my glass-paneled one.
Barbara says
PS Thanks for the motivation to de-clutter!
Mary says
LOVE.THE.BOX.
simple, unique and useful.
now to find the right coffee table for our living room.
as always thank you for the inspiration.
Anitra says
We actually recently got rid of our coffee table (well, gave it to mother-in-law), because with 2 little ones running around, it always ended up shoved against the wall and collecting horizontal clutter (especially crayons and drawing supplies). HOWEVER – we were thinking ahead back when we bought it; it's not an open table! It had doors & shelves built in underneath – really good for storing that gotta-have-it-nearby stuff. (The other reason it would be shoved against the wall is that some of those doors were un-child-proof-able.)
RubberChickenGirl says
“The box is not a remedy for Original Sin. I know. Bummer.”
HAHAHAHAHAHA!! of the day. =O)
I am on a mission to go to Michael's and/or JoAnn and get a couple of those crates after manana (payday).
RCG