When we lived in an apartment after the divorce my son had one bedroom and my daughter the other, and I slept on a futon on the living room. They went to bed earlier so I wasn't bothered during the night. I shared a large walk-in closet with Moonglow, but didn't have a dresser top. We shared a bathroom counter, but that wasn't the same.

There was a coat closet right inside the front door, but most of what we hung up in there was short. So I reworked the closet, put a shelf all the way to the door jamb at waist height and put the hanger rod under it. I put shallow shelves up the back of the closet above the waist-high shelf, but I spaced them high enough that I could prop a very pretty mirror at the back. There was a plug nearby so I had a small lamp in there and all of my hairbrush and various dresser items on that shelf and above. The kids still hung jackets in the bottom of the closet. Anything long went in the bedroom closets.

I was quite pleased with the resulting look of that little space and it was very efficient.

Geez, but I'm tired. I'll sleep tonight! I think I spent a full 3 hours pushing the mower and toting the trimmer. I never use the self-propelled feature so I get more of a workout.

SRS

P.S. I've since learned that this kids-in-the-bedrooms Mom-on-the-futon arrangement is commonplace when divorced-moms move into apartments. Giving the kids a space of their own (they always shared a room until then) and getting more thorough use of the space by turning the entire thing into a nighttime sleeping space wasn't an original idea. It was crowded but well-designed, and I had two of those big Public Storage pods plus a storage locker in New Mexico in a town I almost moved to, packed away until I moved into this house. Once I got everything out of storage I swore I'd never have so much stuff here that I'd have to use it while I lived in a house. If I had extra money, I'd invest in those storage lockers. People are packrats and the folks who build those must make a killing.