How to play Tetris with your furniture when you are on a tight budget.

I am desperate for a kitchen update. My plan is to push the pantry into the lounge room by 80 cm (there is a load supporting beam in its construction that has to stay), knock down the wall and thereby create another doorway into the kitchen. This will mean I lose most of my bench space, but I will live with that if it means extra floor space. Because OMG it is making me claustrophobic! On the side of the fridge will be a bookshelf for cookbooks, and this will also be the home of a butchers block on wheels. Also needed - new splash back, new bench top, new cupboards, new light fitting. Just a big trip to Ikea will do it really.

Pre Octopus Dresser

How do you all feel about painted wood? I like it, I love Miss Mustard Seed, I love this and this and maybe this. But I have a reflex reaction to almost every other piece of furniture that has been painted "Oh my god get that shit off your pretty face!!" This is a problem, because Mr BC wants me to paint his grandmother's mahogany dresser in navy blue chalk paint, with an octopus free handed across the drawers. He says he believes in me, and if we don't like it, we can just strip the paint off. So deep breaths, people! It's going to happen! (side note: research chalk paint)

The octopus dresser will then move from the lounge to the bedroom, and in it's place will sit Poppa's chair (which I have almost finished restoring, just the upholstery left to go). At this point the lounge will also need some cushions and probably a new rug; it will definitely need a section of the floor refinished because that chipboard section is still an eyesore. (side note: find floor covering that matches the rest of the stripey floor boards.)

Corner of shame.

I need to resolve the corner coffee table situation that inhabits the 'L' point of the couches. If you haven't guessed, we live in a shoebox and the couches cannot really go anywhere else. I need a plant in this corner (for Fung Shoi, duh) and a place to put a lamp and a cup of tea. The current lego installation is not working for me.

What I really want. Image from House Beautiful again.

All the crap currently in the soon to be octopus dresser will be hidden in lovely basket/boxes and sit on the bookshelf where the cookbooks where (see point 1, they will be moving to the kitchen.) I am going to replace the broken, hideous blinds with some wooden slat venetians. Not plantation shutters, I haven't won lotto! In the boys bedroom, in the bathroom (so the neighbourhood can stop getting an evening peepshow) and in the east wall of the lounge room. I would rather just knock the wall down in the lounge and put a deck in, but that is not in the budget for a little while yet and I cannot live with these dirty broken vertical blinds any longer.

Dvd storage is chockers.

DVD storage: this is currently a health hazard, at least to the DVDs. I am not one of those digitally intelligent people who get rid of the discs and keep the movies on a hidden drive. I like to have the covers, so sue me for hoarding tendencies. Currently they sit in/on a small chest of drawers, when I build/acquire the new DVD storage (it's gonna be rad!) this chest of drawers will have wheels attached and become my new under desk storage.

They look menacing.

God knows what will happen to the bedside table I am using for under desk storage at the moment, maybe it will form a cabal with the other 3 unused bedside tables and vote me off the island of Furniture Shenanigans. They should get in line behind the 4 dining tables we own.

Ready for Christmas, as long as no one sits there.

Speaking of dining tables - I need a new one. I love the one we have (like marry it, love) but it's curved shape is a bit large for this spot. I need a long, thin, rectangular table that people can sit comfortably around and still allow others to walk through the dining area without going over or under the table. Maybe I could swap it out for the one Mr BC is using as a desk? That is long and thin, and just needs some restoration work on the top...