Space Saving Technologies for the Home? 156
An anonymous reader asks: "My wife & I are moving from an 1800 square foot apartment to a 900 square foot apartment this weekend. In order to keep our one size extravagance, a 6' x 6' table, we need to make some compromises. What can I do to solve this problem? What other great space-saving solutions with technology are there?"
"The first compromise we've made is books. All of my O'Reilly books, and any other book that we can access on Safari is being given away or sold. I've also gotten rid of my outdated tech manuals, except for the VMS books, and historically significant UNIX books.
I've also disposed of all my desktops. My wife is keeping hers, but all I really need is a portable laptop stand which can mount an LCD screen, and my PowerBook.
Now comes the Living Room -- our entertainment center takes up way too much space. 400 DVDs, 100 videos, and countless CDs. We're going to rip all of the CDs, for sure. We're also going to get rid of our television and replace it with a wall-mounted LCD.
This leaves an important question: Digital Media Centers. I've seen a lot of half-there DIY digital media centers involving MythTV or Windows Media Center Edition. I just haven't seen the right solution. The right solution to me needs to allow me to easily rip and encode (though I'd be happy just ripping, because I don't want to sacrifice quality for space. I have 10 400GB hard drives laying in my office waiting for a use)."
Sell, Give, Freecycle (Score:5, Insightful)
Books, records, old software, old computers.... there is no end of stuff that seems too good to lose that in fact you can toss easily.
If it can be easily replaced, sell it at a yard sale, on e-bay, or just give it to friends with less means that yourself. If you haven't used in it in a year, toss it out.
Hell, I've given away cars in the past, and a seven foot aluminum stepladder today. The more that you do it, the
Really, any of us have about 300% more stuff than we really need.
Didn't you get the memo? (Score:3, Insightful)
THE THINGS YOU OWN
THEY END UP OWNING YOU
Just blow it all up.
random ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Another thing you can do is put stuff up on ebay and make money while you gradually clear out your stuff.
Lose the 6x6 table (or uncrew the legs and put it in the aforementioned storage); a 3x5 footer can fit against a wall when you don't have company over.
When I do spring cleaning I look at something and try to decide if I've actually used it in the last year. If not, out it goes.
Best Technology of All (Score:3, Insightful)
A $30/mo storage locker and a push cart.
Stick all you can in the storage locker. Anything you haven't gone and retrieved in a year's time goes on the push cart whenever the Salvation Army is ready for you.
It's all about planning and organization (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything has a place. Make sure that everything you own has a place. In small spaces, sometimes you have to sacrifice a little bit of "logical placement" for some "practical placement". For example, I have my pile of extra batteries and spare lightbulbs in a drawer in the nightstand of my bedroom. Does this make sense? Not really; they should probably be in a utility closet or something, but, they fit well there and there was nothing else using that space. The important part is that they've got a place and they're not cluttering up another area.
Efficient use of furniture. When possible try to use furniture that has built-in storage. For example, an end table with a drawer or two can be really useful for storing all sorts of things. Think in 3D. If a piece of furniture is occupying some of your precious square-footage, try to make the best possible use of that space. Storing infrequently used items in drawers or underneath an end-table with a table cloth over it (for example) can make a big difference.
Shelving. You'd be amazed how much you can store on a couple of rows of shelves. If you're not storing books/trinkets or other "decorative" things, you can find wall-mounted book-cases with doors to hide your crap.
Density. In areas that are more-or-less designated for storage (closets, etc), pack densly, but wisely. Well-labelled boxes (like shoe-boxes) can be great for storing all sorts of stuff in a dense manner.
Organization. This one is a big one. Keeping track of where all your stuff is can be tricky. I highly recommend labelling storage containers and remembering to put back what you took out when you're done. When you're stuck in a small space, you'll be amazed how many things you own that you just don't use regularly. Keeping these things accessible but out of the way allows you to retain what you own and now feel too cluttered.
IKEA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Table (Score:4, Insightful)
People just collect too much crap. If you get rid of the crap you don't need (I have a huge DVD collection that I'm getting rid of, because it makes no sense to take up a whole wall to store them when I have already watched them and will probably never watch them again!). Keep a few of yoru most favorite DVDs (say, your Monty Python's Flying Circus collection and your Black Adder collection and your copy of Equilibrium and Brazil) but get rid of the crap. Are you seriously going to watch Red Dawn again? Or Romeo Must Die?!
And for furniture.. well... don't be sentimental and don't be concerned with having to have what you are told everyone has to have by a certain age. Just because they tell you everyone should have a house, a picket fence, a dog, a sofa, a loveseat, a dining table, four chairs, a bed, two end tables, lamps, nightstand, armoire, phone stand, entertainment stand, hallway table, throw-rug, paintings on the walls and a rocking chair doesn't mean you need them or that you even want them. Get rid of the crap that makes people think you're "all grown up now" and keep the crap that you ENJOY and **USE**.
Everything should be disposable in your mind, so that you can dispose of it when it has served it's purpose. Otherwise you're going to just let material goods run your life. You can't throw something away, because you might need it later. You might watch that DVD again in the next ten years even though you haven't in the last five. You might need that weird AC/DC adapter even though you have 14 of them in a plastic bag in an old cardboard box and you don't know what any of them go to. You might need that old $10 phone from Target that is taking up a bunch of space in a drawer. You just never know! Better keep it all!
Then again, I'm not one of those people who like the "cozy" and "cramped" feeling. My home is very stark. Nothing on the walls. No paintings, posters, pictures. Nothing. No throw rugs on the floor. No decorative anything. I have a plain shower curtain. I have plain desks with my computers on them. I have a plain lamp for light. And a treadmill and a cat-tree thing. And then my big TV. That's it. You could roll around on the floor all day and not feel the need for more space.
Even now, I'd rather have less stuff. Lighter stuff. Ideally, you'd have things in such a way that if you had to pick up and leave and never come back, you could do it all in one day - from packing to cleaning to shipping to physically leaving.
Future Ask... questions! (Score:1, Insightful)
Come on, they'd be better than the crappy "Ask Slashdot"s tonite (If this looks familiar, I crossposed it to the other crappy ask question tonite.)
Re:Table (Score:4, Insightful)
Tools used were a two inch brush (oh, I have a pot of watered down glue which I keep on hand; I also used it to bind a book earlier in the day), a couple other brushes, a razor blade, a sharpened screwdriver (to score the tile), a pair of needle nose pliers, some sandpaper, and a Dremel powertool (to drill out the holes for the lacing in the tiles). Plus a pushpin to pop the holes in the muslin covered cardboard. Oh, and a pencil and artist's eraser to sketch out the symbol before I painted it.
That's a hell of a chunk of stuff... and I pulled it all out of boxes on shelves above my desk.
I dislike a cozy feeling as well -- my living room has a few pieces of furniture and that is *it*. Even in my office, I have a wall of tools and boxes and another wall with a window and almost nothing else. It's where I face when I'm using my laptop. But at the same time, my hobbies do require a good chunk of "stuff", both tools and raw materials.
I can play music on just a guitar. It's nice, and that bit of wood and wire is all I need. But when I build an entire set of props for a stage production, I need a bunch of "stuff". I have indexed and labeled boxes full of various odds and ends, and it generally winds up getting used. I occasionally even pick up stuff on the ground when walking around -- a beat up hubcap that I found in the gutter became, a bit of clay and a mold casting later, the emblem on a guitar case.
I hate pack ratting... I am very aggressive when cleaning out the pantry, the bookshelves, my bedroom (one bed, one chest of drawers, two side tables with one lamp each, one cage full of mice). But I do have a ton of stuff useful for art and stage: foam heads with wigs in one closet, power tools in the basement, another closet full of fabric.
Don't equate "stuff" with material goods -- it is the useless stuff that are the only things that weigh you down. And the attachment to things that can be replaced (and almost everything can be replaced). I've moved cross country twice in the past few years and dropped quite a bit of stuff in each move. But I immediately start building up a storehouse of useful items.
Because it's not the items that are bad - it's how you feel about them and what you do with them. A football player needs a football. A musician needs an instrument. And other people wind up needing a bunch of stuff that is another man's garbage. The researcher needs their pile of books. The working musician needs a pile of gear. Stuff is not, in and of itself, bad.
--
Evan
Re:Table (Score:3, Insightful)
(or a social life but I won't mince words here)
Sometimes it's nice to have a clean open space to sit down and actually enjoy a meal or conversation with friends without having to plop them in front of the boob tube or cram them in fold out chairs between your server racks... gah!
Re:Sell, Give, Freecycle (Score:3, Insightful)
Me too, a 1973 Dodge Dart with the 318 V8. I gave it to my girlfriend's uncle, who used it to go hunting. It was so rusty the roof columns broke and the roof fell in. It's probably still there in the woods, living as a convertible...
Back to topic, I recently moved from a two bedroom apartment to a five room apartment, and never felt so good in my life. I now have a bedroom, computer room, electronics shop, music and reading room, and gym. Giving old things away is OK, but having living space is essential to one's personal well-being.
Re:Basement ? Cellar ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sell, Give, Freecycle (Score:3, Insightful)
On the ripping media front, I'm struggling to build a thin MythTV client around an Via EPIA nano-ITX board in a Silverstone LC-08 case. Because Via changed the nano-ITX back-panel and power connector style and layout at the last minute, Silverstone is retooling the LC-08 case. Unfortunately, Via is now insisting on the use of a (temp switched, I think) fan in what was originally to be a fanless design (the whole point of me choosing it).
I have hundreds of CDs, VHS tapes, and DVDs, and the space they take up is annoying. In the mid-1980s I had a modern stereo cabinet designed and built (Oak and granite, trapezoidal, with an inverted trapezoidal top) to accomodate 240 CDs, 90 cassette tapes, with a shelf for an amp, and showing off the B&O 5500 components on the top, shock-mounted granite inlays.
It looks nice, but takes up lots of space in the family room, and is now full of media. It does nothing for the VHS tapes.
So, definately, rip, rip, rip, and store the original media in a cool, dry place. This goes for photos too: unless you're a serious photographer, digital cameras are great. Just keep backups. Yes, I still have my F2 and FT2 and a nice set of lenses. I just don't use it much anymore.
We're hardly at the point where I'd like to get to, but once you get started, getting rid of clutter is wonderful.
Re:Magazine (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it doesn't make sense to rip DVDs to save space because they are already lossy -- ripping them to hard drive might make sense, although the drive might need to be quite big in order for the drive to take up less space than the DVDs would stacked on top of each other:-)
CDs, on the other hand, can be reduced 2:1 lossless and 10:1 without any perceptual loss, so it makes perfect sense to rip those to save space.