small house, how to make room?

[PinPoynter]

This is my very first post on mumsnet, hope I have put it in the right place.
We are expecting our first baby in 6 months time, which is obviously really scary and exciting!
We live in a small 1 bedroom house, with a small garden. We don't have a lot of stuff, but already the house feels cluttered. We also have 3 dogs and 2 cats, and I thought I'd start now, finding out what things we will need to make room for, for when baby arrives.
We don't have a garage, so no outdoor storage space.
Any good tips, or people with experience of similar situation?

DO you have loft space big enough to do a conversion? What is the storage like in the rest of the house?

I would keep baby in your room with you until they are about a year old, then have a sofa bed in the living room, baby in bedroom. You could keep your wardrobes in baby room.

(I'd also get rid of the animals, but I hate pets!)

How about a shed for some extra storage?

The key to having room is having the right storage I think. Making the most of the space you have, so building shelves into alcoves, or having shelves above door height. Having a look at the Ikea website might help as they often have display rooms like that.

Is the bedroom large? As it might be possible to put up a partition wall in the future to give two rooms.

As to making room for baby, they are actually quite small. They do sell a lot of stuff for them though.

If you wanted to, you might co-cleep so no need for cot, carry baby in a sling rather than a bulky pram, breastfeed so no need for steriliser etc.
There are many in-between solutions too. A bedside cot will use up less floor space in total than a normal cot for instance, and a buggy rather than pram can be folded up when you get home.

Thank you! So true, it's not the baby, it's the stuff.. I am hoping to breast feed anyway, feel it's much healthier and natural, so fingers crossed that will work.
Forgot to add that we rent, so can't do convertions etc. We do have a shed, but it is already full of stuff LOL...
We already sleep on a sofabed downstairs, and use upstairs as work room/office/clothes storage. The bedroom is not large, definitely not bit enough to be devided.
Pets are not going anywhere !!

A non-permanent division might be possible though? A curtain to divide the areas when the babies bigger.

Ok, some office stuff minimising. Our desktop died and we didn't replace it, just use our laptops, but the printer sits on the bookcase, ready to plug in when needed. I mostly use the laptop on the dining table, but it can easily be shifted.

Best place to start is with a serious decluttering.

I think you are right... my OH will love you LOL as I am sadly the one with issues saying bye-byes to stuff!
Thank you all for your ideas, definitely some things to think about.
I am sure I will like this place

We live in a tiny 1 and a half bed flat with no garden ('half' because DS's room wouldn't fit an adult size bed). We were here when DS was born and still here 4 years later.

My top tips:

• Be ruthless in your decluttering, but give everything to a good cause so you can feel less sad about letting go of it. Put some music on, and tackle one small area per evening, or it gets overwhelming. Books - be honest, will you really re-read it? If not, it has to go. Clothes - if you haven't worn it for a year, it goes. Shoes - if they hurt your feet or are scuffed/worn, they go. Exercise equipment/hobbies - unless you have used it in the past two weeks, it goes. Papers - file bank statements, pay slips etc. and recent utility bills, and important documents. If there are things you just want a reference copy of, scan them in and store them all on a memory stick - they'll be easier to file and find later that way anyway. Shred and recycle the rest - shredding anything with name and address or personal details on. Repeat - be ruthless - paper multplies!

CDs/DVDs - if you haven't listened to it/watched it for a year, give it to charity. Use itunes for buying music and lovefilm or somesuch for DVDs (so you return it, rather than buying it). For the things you really want to keep, get some of those 50 CD wallets (from supermarkets etc), throw away the plastic packaging and put them in the wallets.

Pets: don't bulk buy their food. Where do they sleep - it needs to be a dedicated area so that you can stop baby stuff and animal stuff marching all over the house and getting muddled together.

Baby: don't buy everything people say you need. You don't need a nappy bin, or a steriliser (we used sterilising bags for the microwave to sterilise dummies and bottles after I'd stopped breastfeeding), or a moses basket (beautiful, but unnecessary)... We didn't buy a buggy in the beginning - kept carrying DS in the babybjorn until he was 6 months. Look around on MN for what people say you really need. If you buy something and it turns out you don't really need it after all, give it to a pregnant friend the same week that you realise you don't need it.

Oh and... congratulations on your pregnancy

Ruthlesness in decluttering has commenced! -by boyfriend, not myself... I am terrible. We have moved bedroom back upstairs, but thrown out useless broken computertable (we have a laptop now anyway)and we are putting things we never use in boxes for the loft.
Starting to sleep up stairs now, give the dogs plenty of upportunity to get used to not sleeping near us long before baby is here(one of them have never slept alone, the others used to come upstairs when we last had bedroom up there, but due to oldest dogs epilepsi, I don't want her going up the stairs for fear of her falling down!)
First night went very well