Tiny House Week Part 2: Clayton's Room

Building on yesterday's back story on taking a leap of faith and building our own house, I want to stress that we did it because of stress.  We needed to change our lives and dismiss the idea that we were "suppose" to live a certain way and instead forge our own path to make our lives better in spite of all the obstacles we had been given.  Life with Clayton was too complicated for both of us to work.  And one income was too stressful for the life we were living.  The stress of everything had become overwhelming to both of us.  So I started making very deliberate efforts to eliminate stress everywhere it wasn't absolutely necessary.  I then developed ways for us to divide and conquer as best we could.
I rock at being Clayton's advocate and medical manager; so naturally, that became my role and allowed George to stress less over that.  I also manage our finances, which means George can do his thing and go to work everyday and not have to worry so much about crunching the numbers.  I predominantly carry those burdens for us and that allows George to focus on what he needs to focus on which is being our provider.  And to ensure he would be the best provider possible, we agreed he would finish his degree.  Which again helps me stress less because my husband will have his degree which will give him a leg up in addition to the many skills he already has.  And all of that allows me to worry less about our potential for economic stability.  Then building this house and living with our new monthly mortgage meant we had more money for prescriptions and copays for Clayton and I was able to again, stress less about finances.  So we divided and conquered the inevitable stresses and eliminated nonessential stresses; that I'll talk about in another post next week.
Ultimately we just focused our energy on eliminating stress and learning to manage our lives in a healthier way.  Having a special needs child makes you worry even more then normal about your health and we knew that we would never be able to sustain any level of decent health under the pressure we were under.  Stress wreaks havoc on the body and we have stress enough for an entire army.  Hands down, what we have done so far are the best things we have ever done and I am so grateful we were able to learn these lessons now and change our life accordingly now rather than later.

Anyhow, that is the thinking and motivation behind the plan for the house we built and the small additions that will come.  So on to the good stuff. 

While I'm sure no one was interested in my closet, I think a number of people have been curious about Clayton's room.  Probably more so since I revealed how small it was yesterday.  So here you go:

The view from the master.

Storage is the big issue in such a small space.  That said, finding storage that worked best for Clayton took some doing.  He makes a mess of everything.  I mean everything.  You cannot keep a room tidy with him.  I'm not just talking about his things, but your things too!  It definitely takes effort and lots of trial and error to figure out what will help him to keep things tidy.  Originally I hoped the basket on his shelf would work and even made cute little labels for him...fail.  So I tried a few other things and I finally found that one huge toy box in the living room was the ticket.  I still sort things into his baskets, but when it comes to getting him to clean up, one centrally located place for everything was the ticket.  As far as storage in general in a small space goes, we make the most of the space in his room and are still improving it as needed.  His bed has a built in dresser on this side and room for open storage behind the drawers.  The efficiency of the bed has been what makes the small space work.

A more recent addition from cleaning out our closet was an unused shoe storage hanger that I used to add vertical storage for his "bay-bees".  The best part is that he loves it too!  Usage of vertical space is really one of the main themes in our home. You can also see our unpainted doors and unfinished trim work in these pics.  Eventually we will replace all the stock trim on door frames.  Probably a ways off though.

His personal Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Storage on the side of bed under his little "bar".

I know the pictures aren't the greatest since they are iPhone pictures, but that's how I roll. So...oh and I took them in natural lighting so you can see his room gets plenty of light in spite of being small.  He loves it.  For whatever reason, small clubhouse like spaces are his jam.

Sources:

Wooden airplane- Thrifted from kids resale
"Bay-Bee" door hanger- Walmart
White book ledges- George built years ago
Book basket- The Rachael Basket from World Market

Labeled baskets- Target
Green shelving unit- Mine from when I was a kid
Rug- Estate sale
Bed- Amazon
Hanging house- Belonged to my mom
Mickey mirror- Belonged to my nephew
Nightlight- Restoration Hardware
Bedding- Tommy Hilfiger, Ikea, Pottery Barn Kids
American Flag art- My mom purchased at a charity auction

Unless we need to add more vertical storage, I don't see us doing anything else to his room.  It is only temporary after all.  More of our house reveal tomorrow and at some point I'll reveal our future plan for the (small) house addition as well.  Keep checking back!