Out Of Sight Toy Storage

I have this love seat, the kind with the skirted bottom, so it would be great to hide store things under it.  The only problem is, the love seat is so low, all the under the bed storage bins are too tall to fit under it.
So I had to take matters into my own hands and make one myself.

I used some boxes I had on hand and taped them together so they'd be as big as I needed.  I used one set of boxes for our wooden trains and track, and another set of boxes for our duplo blocks.  These boxes are about 3.5 inches tall, 13 inches wide and 36 inches deep.  They fit perfectly under the love seat....

Rug Rearranging

I don't just rearrange furniture, I rearrange my rugs too.
Just like the bookcases in the living room seemed awkward to me, so did the rug.

It was centered against the couch, fireplace and tv.

It wasn't centered with the plaid sofa, and there was so much white space in front of the tv, making it seem like the rug was too small for the room.  Well, that may be the case, but rugs are expensive, especially ones that are 9x12 and larger, so I'm going to work with what I have.  FYI: the red rug is 5x8 and we got it for $20 at a yard sale.

Bookcase Rearranging and Styling Tricks

Since I have to wait to put my new storage bench together, I'll share some other furniture rearranging that I've done.  We've had these bookcases for at least a decade.  They are made from real wood, none of that particle board stuff, and have held up wonderfully over the years, even with tons of heavy college books on them.  The shelves haven't warped a bit.  I love them, but wasn't liking how they were situated in our living room.

Our living room is large and we have a large tv and entertainment center on the one wall.  The bookcases were more toward the corners leaving a space between the entertainment center and the bookcases that just looked awkward to me.  The speakers were there but the tallness of the entertainment center followed by the shorter speakers and then up again to the tall bookcases just didn't seem to flow.

Is is just me, or does it look weird that way?

You can see we have lots of books.  And this is the kid's side.  The other bookcase is full of our old college books, some church books and my scrapbooks.

The only way to move these babies was to completely empty them.

I made piles on the floor, trying to group like books together.   I also got rid of an entire box of books so things would look less cluttered when I put the books back on the shelf.

The Ottoman is Otto-here

I've been in a clearing out and de-cluttering mood.  Ever since I had a couple of yard sales back in September, I've been looking for things to get rid of.  One thing that has been bothering me was the ottoman in our living room.  It was something I had picked up for free at a yard sale two years ago and recovered it so it looked like this:

You can see I had even made some matching pillows.

Of course it didn't start out that lovely.  When I first got it, it looked like this: