Happy 2010! It was a very busy end to the year, which found me staying at my parents’ house for four out of five weeks because of Christmas, my 30th birthday, and some travel, and therefore, not doing much of my usual homeowner duties.
Now that we’re into the doldrums portion of the year, where the days are cold and mostly grey, with nothing like Christmas to look forward to, it’s time for my home projects to start up again in earnest. I mentioned a few things towards the end of last year that I planned to work on, but something new came up this weekend instead.
I’m a big believer in fixing what bugs you. I remember working on an organizational challenge a few years ago that began with walking through my living space and picking the things that really bothered me. Things like ugly light switches, chips in the wall paint, loose wallpaper corners, that type of thing – the stuff that makes you say things you don’t mean, like “I hate this house!” whenever you’re having a bad day and stumble on them.
I finally came to that point this weekend with my downstairs coat closet. I normally grab whatever I need out of there and quickly shut the door, so I don’t have to see the clutter and disaster within. It was one of the places in the house that still harbors a weird “former occupant” smell too, which even overpowered the little air freshener I put in there. It was a dumping ground for coats, hats, scarves, gloves, unused hockey skates, dog food, tv tray tables, sketch pads, a piece of carpet, a mop, vacuum, two pairs of boots, a pair of old sneakers, some never used ski goggles, and more. I just hated it, but I mostly pretend it’s not there or important to clean out.
But Saturday night, as I was thumbing through my files looking for ideas to improve my guest room, I found this article from the November issue of Real Simple:
Ah, so pretty
I remember totally loving this closet when I read the article, and thinking, hey, I could do that (and I did it for less than half of the $375 price tag they quote in the article)!
So when I needed a Sunday project, I decided that the closet would be a good start. I’m almost embarrassed to show you the before pictures of my closet, which was stuffed to the gills, but it looks so much nicer now – and I ‘m sure that I’m not the only one with cluttered spots in their homes!
Well, here it is, the official before picture - no straightening up for the photo either!
To "save space" I hung all my scarves with my coats. Which just made the hanging items bulkier
The bottom of the closet wasn't any better - it was all about out of sight, out of mind
I ended up just tossing all my hats and gloves on the shelf because I had no where else to put them
To start, I made a list of what I wanted and needed, even before I cleaned out the closet (just in case I was too tired to start on the closet itself once I’d run my errands – I’m still feeling the jet lag these days!). I really liked the shelving unit that they’d used in the closet in the article, and I love love love baskets of any kind, so I put those items on my list. I also decided to get a basket for the top shelf – things just look neater when you have somewhere to put them.
I also liked that in the article, they’d painted the inside of the closet a fun color – I never would have thought to do that otherwise! Since I plan to paint the center wall of my living area an accent color, I figured that I would pick the color I wanted and then use that for the inside of the closet as well. And since the entire inside of the closet was a bit grody, I also decided to get some matte white paint to freshen up the trim, the shelf and the ceiling.
I started at Target and found two wonderful stackable shelves from ClosetMaid for $19.99 each. It wasn’t exactly like the piece in the article, but I thought it was a fairly economical alternative (I can’t find them online, but they were in the store). I checked out the baskets there as well, but they didn’t have enough to fill the six shelves I would end up with, so I next headed to Michaels. By sheer coincidence, Michaels was having a 40% off sale on their baskets, so I was in heaven. I love the dark brown baskets, but they didn’t have six of these, so I settled for alternating dark with light baskets. They only had five in the size I wanted, so I decided to leave the bottom shelf free for my skates – yes, even though I’ve never ever used them in about 10 years of owning them.
I also picked up some dark brown soft round baskets for my bathrooms – I saw another great decorating idea recently, where someone used these baskets to store new rolls of toilet paper. It frees up any under the sink storage areas for other things (those are also spots I need to work on in the next few months) and looks pretty in the house. It’s a silly little thing, but I was so thrilled with them, along with the dark basket I bought for my laundry items to sit on top of my stackable washer-dryer.
Baskets Galore!
Then, it was on to Lowes for paint and supplies. I picked up some samples for my guest room overhaul, which I’m planning to work on over the next few months, since that’s another room that drives me crazy. I also got my paint for the closet, and then it was off to work!
I started by emptying out the entire closet and deciding what could be relocated. I realized that the tv tray tables haven’t been used since I moved in, but could always be useful, so I put those up in the attic. Also to the attic went a Christmas box that had been holding a laughable number of gloves and hats and the piece of carpet I’d been keeping in there.
The closet makeover article I’d read mentioned that not all coats need to be in the coat closet, so I relocated any of my spring/fall coats to an upstairs closet and put all of my winter coats on the same type of hanger – fortunately, I had those already. I went through my hats, gloves and scarves, as well as coats, and put anything I didn’t want anymore in a bag to go to goodwill. Next, I realized that I could fit my ironing board next to my washer-dryer in the bathroom and that it made more sense to keep all of the laundry-related items together. So I got rid of the two extra mops that I no longer use (since I love my Shark steam mop!) and put the ironing board behind my drying rack in the bathroom. The iron and accessories were also relocated to the bathroom, while my sketch pad was moved to the upstairs closet with all my other sketch pads. Salt for melting ice/snow went into the shed, my trunk cover went back out to the car, and the boots I don’t often wear went into my upstairs closet.
Finally empty!
There's actually a lot of space in this closet, but you can see I also had to contend with my alarm box
Maybe I was just trying to cover up the grody-ness with all my clutter
I learned that while sometimes I still have the energy to paint at the end of the day, it’s not always a good idea when I don’t have a big spotlight to shine on the project. I only have a small light in my closet, and between that and a flashlight, it was a bit of a struggle to finish up the painting. But I managed to get it done – two coats of the blue and the white matte paint, and the closet looked great.
Painting done! So much better already
You’ll see from the pictures that I have a gross eyesore in the closet too – the home of one of my two filters. I learned from watching countless hours of HGTV that if you want an architectural feature to disappear, paint it the same color as the surrounding walls. So I painted it blue along with the walls and aside from still being in the way, it does blend MUCH better than before!
Next, I put together the shelving units, which should be attached to a stud if they’re going to be stacked. I don’t have one in the closet, but I can attach the top unit to the wood holding up the shelf, and plan to do that later today for safety. I sorted the remaining items into baskets and was surprised to find I had a TON of room in the closet now! Once the paint was dry, I easily put the shelving units back in the closet with their baskets, tucked the dog food behind the filter box and the vacuum at the back of the closet too, hung up my winter coats and extra hangers for guests, put my snow boots in a basket on the top shelf, snuck in my mop, and even had enough room to put away a “project box” (which contains the crocheted quilt I’m working on) on the top shelf!
The after!
No more clutter!
I’m so pleased with it that I want to get to work making over ALL my closets, but one step at a time. My next project is to paint the accent wall, now that I have the paint to do it – I was watching Sabrina Soto yesterday on Get it Sold, and she said that if you have a center wall in an open-plan floor, it’s a good idea to paint it a darker color (in the same family as the rest of the paint) to give the room depth. So I’m glad I’m thinking like a designer!
