Upcycled Minimalist Interior Chic

I'm spending a couple months in Montana before I migrate back West to Oregon. This past Thursday I arrived here at the two-story cabin-styled home that I will be boarding in until mid-September. The house was absolutely empty when I arrived and had the appearance of never being lived in; there were no hangers in the closets, no phone book in the kitchen, and no toilet paper in the bathrooms, all common left-overs from previous tenants.

My downstairs bedroom was, not surprisingly, stark. Bright white walls and light wood floors and molding accentuated the bareness. A modest sized closet, draped with a plain beige curtain in lieu of doors, hides my clothes and other baggage. The single large rectangular window looks out onto grass hills and meadows.

To make my space feel pleasant and like my own, I made some practical and readily available additions to the room. Simple sheer white curtains now hang in front of my window, and a potted succulent vine from a local thrift store sits on the sill. A large tan shag rug that I found upstairs covers most of the open hardwood floor space, providing a large cushy area to sit and craft, enlighten with Tarot, or practice early morning yoga. The single large window faces East, so the bed, a foam mattress resting on the floor, lies in the corner that receives the morning sunlight.

My room is not large, but certainly is big enough for just me. A lack of clutter in my space is particularly important to maintaining a feeling of peacefulness for myself here in this beautiful Bitterroot Valley. To organize my craft supplies and books, the essentials that relocated with me from Portland, I have implemented a couple simple, inexpensive, and upcycled furniture solutions.

To organize my books near my bed and provide a comfortable reading space, I have used a milk crate to function as both book shelf and table top. It holds some reading materials and my notebooks neatly and conveniently near my bed. Above the used and borrowed books, a sufficient $4 reading lamp (picked up from the S.A.F.E on First Thrift Store here in Hamilton, MT) sits next to an AM/FM/Air/Shortwave radio loaned to me from my new roommate.

On the wall opposite the foot of my bed is a small ground-level “desk” space for my laptop and crafting. A second milk crate holds craft supplies under the desktop. The milk crates were picked up from a thrift store South of town for $0.50 each.

The desk consists of 3 found items: a piece of unused shelf that was already here in the house and two cement blocks I found outside scattered about the yard. Small pieces of cardboard are between the hardwood floor and each cement block to prevent unattractive scratching from occurring.

The crafting milk crate pulls out from under the desk for easy relocation purposes. I can move it to the carpeted area in my bedroom or to any other space in the house with much ease. Two small drawing boards are kept on top of the crate as convenient and removable flat writing surfaces.

Now that you have evidence of my repurposed & minimalist interior design skills, and my impeccable caningness for materials organization, I suppose I better get busy with the real crafting. My plan today is to paint an acrylic Bitterroot landscape on the side of a mailbox.

I have to keep occupied somehow.