Clean Sweep - Mennonite Edition

Well, all my ranting inspired me to search the internet for all the ideas I could find on organization for small spaces. There were tons of great ideas and organizing tools, unfortunetly most were at a cost. We're still paying off our new garage and don't exactly have the budget but the great thing is I can still start with the small things/costs and start making a difference in each room a little at a time. I'm actually quite pumped about the potential in my home now!

I've started with the dining room and guest room, I will be moving my crafts into the guest room and reducing the "guest" part of that room. For now we are storing the bed at my parents until we have a place with a 3rd bedroom, and eventually I will put one of our futons up there, so we can still host guests, but only once I have new storage chairs to replace the futon in the living room.
Seeing as I don't have a lot of surface space in my house I needed some for my new craft room, and my current desk is ideal, but that meant getting a new desk for the dining room/office. My first cost : ( Luckily there was a small unexpected amount of money left over from a utility bill that wasn't as high as we thought, and paired with my allowance I was able to afford a computer armoire! I found this brilliant idea in my organizing research and realized it was the perfect solution to an office in a dining room. I searched for one of these online but the costs were high, not to mention the shipping costs were almost 1/3 of the price of the desk! I lucked out and found this piece and we're picking it up Sunday! I am so excited. Not only is it a great deal but our dining room will soon have 1/3 more room! I'd like to get one to replace Sean's desk too....when we have the money.
The last thing that we can do, at little or no cost, is reduce our clothes and the space that holds our clothes. We have to use the guest room as a closet because our closets are 3 ft wide and 1 ft deep, on a slanting ceiling. I want to get that out of the guest room but that means making room in the Master bedroom. I've been weeding my clothes about once a year, but Sean has a big weeding to do, and hopefully soon. There are some drawers I don't think he's opened since we've moved in. After thinning the quantity, I'm going to re-evaluate how we can use the space better. Such as, I haven't been filling drawers all the way in order to keep like things seperated. Between those two things I think we can get rid of a dresser. Then the space that dresser was using can be used for the closet organizer we've had in the other room. And once I clean out the closet of a little storage, the rest of what's hanging on the organizer can go in our closet. If that is not enough, I think I will purchase some cheap storage bins to fit under our bed for our out of season clothes and then we will rotate our clothes according to the season.

So, folks, that is how with less than $300 I managed to give myself 1/3 more space in my dining room, still maintain the possibility of a guest room, feel more comfortable inviting guests over (for lack of clutter), actually get to eat at my dining room table, and feel good about donating clothes to charity. Stay tuned for more Clean Sweep - Mennonite style (that means cheaply)!