I love my home but it is just not working for me.
Do you ever feel like this?
If you aren’t familiar with my house, I live in the capital of Canada in an urban area. Being in a large city means that housing tends to be built going up and not out. What that means for me? I have a ton of stairs to go up and my house is actually spread over 3 floors.
As I have shared before, living in a vertical space has it’s challenges and I am constantly tacking those (see some here and here). This time though, my major challenge is how to marry the fact that I have to work and live in the same space. 
I have lived in my house for almost 6 years and have always loved it and have felt very comfortable in it. Over the past few years though things have changed, especially with my business, and I am struggling with how to make it work for me now.
How do you make your space work?
Running a business from home means my space has to do double duty and has to work for both my work and personal life. 
Moving does not feel like the answer, right now anyway, so I have been looking for ways to make it all work. 
Things are so crazy right now that my Living Room is in my Dining Room… my work space/Hometalk Live space is in the Living Room and my Spare Room has pretty much become a storage unit. 
Rearranging, purging, sorting and trying to think outside of the box has become the mantra of late and it seems like it’s the old two steps forward one step back.
I am the type of person that needs to have a space that is calming, relaxing and peaceful. Keeping that in mind when I am formulating a new plan for my space is very important but right now, as things are, there is none of that 😉 
Have you gone through this in your house? Have you ever had to seriously rethink how your house “works” and how you use the various spaces?
If so, I would LOVE to know how you handled it and what process you used to do a major rethink.
I know with continued work and thought it will all come together; it’s just finding the time and energy to keep working at it .
And if you are experience the same thing… just know that you are not alone. We can have homes that reflect who we are while providing space to work!
We have a very similar problem in. Canada’s business capital. Except it’s worse. Not only are we needing space to live and work like you, which we could not figure out because of the problems of space and ongoing and worsening damages the house is experiencing. What we did do is use the cheap plastic shelves available at the hardware store that are actually pretty sturdy. Yes they are pretty ugly but less than the damages to the house ceilings and floors. I am not able to get a loan for much needed repairs and we spend considerable time discussing our situation. Any ideas that are practical, cheap and quick are useful. I discovered that my local dollar store no longer sells things for a dollar that are useful and sturdy enough for organizing what remains in the house. I’m thinking newspaper baskets would be useful and cheaper. I guarantee it will never come together as you say without removing almost all of the items and closing down.
It is such a hard thing to deal with isn’t it?! I have rearranged a handful of times and still keep doing it hoping I will find the perfect place for everything. I think you are very right that getting rid of a lot of things is key. I have been working on sorting and donating in hopes of creating some space! It feels like a never ending battle 😉