My New Closet. Let Me Show U It.

First, though, I have to show you the freaking HORROR that was my closet only three days ago.  I was fed up with the lack of space, lack of organization, maddening disarray, shitty old furniture, and less than adequate hanging space.  Fed UP.  And yet, even three days later, looking back at the before pictures, I'm SHOCKED - how was I living like that?  Good lord!  UGH.

Here's the floorplan we were working with before, which is neat and cute.


But here's what it actually looked like:

AUGH!!!

• 4 shelves
• stack of 10yo Cube-Its by Sauder
• stacks of plastic storage bins
• piles of clothes everywhere that either don't fit anywhere, or won't stay anywhere.  

AUGH!!!

• in case you can't tell, that thing in the middle in both pictures is a small bookshelf filled with baskets and boxes of crap (and dinosaurs)
• whole top shelf:  none of that stuff is even mine. It's just in here. 
• you'll see in a minute how utterly ridiculous that clothing bar on the far right is.

But what's in the center?  I'm glad you asked...

Seriously.   

Believe it or not, this constitutes my shoes being "put away."  At least, the ones that don't fit on the shelf in the hall by the front door, that is.  I *only* have like thirty-some pair.  And nowhere to keep them.  >_<

Even the cats are like...wtf...

Help me, Olioboard!

LOL.


Drumroll, please...

It looks so clean and pretty when it's empty, doesn't it?


I do adore this color, but in this tiny space, I really needed it gone so I could see my actual clothes.  Especially since the lighting in here leaves much to be desired (it's a lightbulb. Seriously. That's it. Just a lightbulb).

Wire. Shelving.  *HISS*

That thing sticking out of the wall for seemingly no reason is a curtain rod bracket I put up to hold my belts.  It's basically the only thing in this closet that actually worked.

I must've patched five. million. holes in this closet before I started to repaint.

Goodbye, old closet! Goodbye, five million holes!  Goodbye, beautiful blue that was still too dark! Goodbye, clean floor (no dropcloth. Oops).  Goodbye, Laura's back, and knees, and shoulders!

After  

Look how clean and fresh!  This is Behr's "White Clay", the same color I put on the ceilings in the bedroom and dining room.  This time, though, it's in a Valspar prime-and-paint, satin-finish base - Lowe's doesn't carry Behr, but they matched the color for me.

Those same four shelves are back up on the left side, in a slightly different configuration; and I've added a fifth.  Why is it so far below the others? Just you wait.

No! More! Wire! Shelving!   Instead I now have one loooooong clothing bar stretching from left to right, for more than double the hanging space than I had before.

Center stage is Ikea's STOLMEN post - meant to be used vertically and in pairs to support other organizing components.  It took a little bit of hacking to get it to hang securely horizontally (and in the process I discovered the purpose of the little inset-corner on the left side: it's a pipe chase.  Which meant that it took a bit more hacking to get that end of the STOLMEN post secured to the wall without putting any screws into my plumbing!)

It's a bit higher than the old clothing bar was, to accomodate my loooong SCA costumes and gowns.

 
Ta-da!  

Omg, that is soooo much better.  Look, I have shoe storage!  And space on that bottom shelf for boots (none of which are standing up right now, because I don't have inserts for them yet, lol).

Those old Cube-Its now have a home underneath the shelving, out of the way.

And all those clothes now have a nice, comfy space to live...

...I'm not even kidding, all of these clothes were crammed into the right half of the closet on the clothing bar under that wire shelf that I took down.  THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH ROOM.  It was literally less than half the length of this new bar.


I do still have some plastic storage bins in here, but now they fit neatly underneath one end of the hanging clothes, out of the way, and mostly out of sight.



Hey, what's that over there?

It's the dresser I refinished over the weekend!  :D

This replaces that stupid bookshelf-and-baskets situation that wasn't working before.  Notice the lack of clothes piled on top!  :D

I haven't really finished decorating the top of it yet; for now there's a tray meant to keep small items from sliding off the top (a problem I had before on the very rare occasion that there weren't clothes piled on top of the bookshelf).

The artwork is a very faded copy of a Matt Manley print I cut from a calendar a million years ago, that used to hang in my bathroom before I put the gold-framed mirror in there.

Winchester says hi. 

I did, however, put my newly-repainted Ikea FIRA jewelry chest in here, which was the plan all along.



Whew!   All of this happened in one day.  Including like 90% of the work on the dresser.  I'm pretty sore.








There's another four-day weekend coming up.  I think I'll sleep through this one.


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A Craigslist Dresser Facelift

I did two things over the holiday weekend break!  (I mean, aside from sleep all day Sunday, because I could).  The first was a quick furniture re-finish:

Before

I found this baby on Craigslist for $40 last week.  It's just a little MDF jobber by Sauder, but brand-spanking new, and pretty nice.  And certainly better than the thing it was replacing (which I'll get to tomorrow).

The first thing I did was remove the drawers, and dismantle the child-proof hardware that was attached to each one, which prevented (a) more than one drawer from being open at a time, and (b) any drawer from being opened without being pushed in and pulled up or some weird combination, in order to release the child-lock before the drawer would open.  I don't have kids.  And now I don't have a dresser that's a PAIN IN THE ASS, either.

The second step was to degloss the entire thing with my trusty Liquid Sander, and hit it with a bit of fine sandpaper to muck up the finish enough to take a coat of paint.

Then I wrapped the entire thing in plastic (yay, planning!) and spray-primed the top.

After

I streaked the body of the dresser, and the drawer fronts, with black paint, to darken the finish and give this thing some actual texture (rather than just the ultra-smooth Picture-of-Wood finish).

I also replaced the wooden knobs that came with this dresser.

A better shot of both the paint
finish and new hardware.

The bottom drawer sports a pair of these guys.  Yes, I adore maps, but actually this was because I only purchased enough handles for the top three drawers the first pass through Hobby Lobby, and when I went back for one more pair, they were out of the flat key-shaped handles I bought before.  I got these instead, because they're adorable.  And I kind of like the mish-mash of hardware on this thing, actually.

The top got another faux-marble paint treatment (whites and grays this time, in stead of the alabaster-y cream and brown like I did on that little nightstand), and I'm sorry to say that most of the picture I took of it just didn't want to come out right.

But this dresser makeover is actually a part of a much larger ordeal - I finally fixed up my bedroom closet!  More on that, and better pics of the dresser top, tomorrow.  :)






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A Year in Review: Year 2!

A little pre-emptive, it being only the 20th, but hey, if the world ends tomorrow...?  LOL.  Kidding.

Rather than recap the entire year (since I do a monthly recap anyway, which is tagged), here are my favorite projects of 2012:

January

I finished my craft room!  It took me a couple of months to get all the bits and pieces put together, and the flooring installed, but I finally finished it, and I loved it!  And now I'm already bored with it.  LOL.  More on that later.

February

Uh...yeah, I didn't really do anything in February except buy a new vacuum cleaner.  :/

March

Made over the guest bedroom, complete with new flooring to match the craft room and coordinate with the rest of the house.  Yay!

April

I finally finished the aquarium stand that I started SEVEN YEARS AGO.  Yay!  (And no, there still aren't any fish in it. Or, you know, even water. There's dust.  I'm telling people it's a terrarium).

May 

Painted the bedroom ceiling (along with an 8" border around the top of the walls) a soft, warm white.  I love it!  I did the same thing in the dining room in June;  and I still plan to do the living room and entry hall ceilings this way, as well.

June  

Several hot hours in the blazing June sun took my Mexican Orchid Tree from an overgrown, shaggy mess, to a lovely small tree in the backyard.  I've learned since June that I really, really need to keep up with the suckers on this thing in order to keep it looking nice.  After being sick for a few weeks in the late summer, this thing grew right back out again and I had to start all over!

July   

I was very sick in July.  :(

August

I played with my bathrooms a lot in August.  Knobs, mirrors, frames, small tweaks like that.  I've been talking about re-painting both of them ever since, but I have yet to get around to it.

September

I made over my fireplace by painting the beige ceramic tiles with chalkboard paint, to make them look like slate tiles.  I love it to itty bitty pieces.  <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">

October 

This might actually be my favorite project of the entire year.  As much as I love all of these projects, this one I can't stop touching, and am planning to repeat on a much larger piece of furniture.  A little red nightstand got a faux-bois makeover and a painted faux-alabaster top.

November

It was either the new hooks in the bathroom or the dining room chairs in November, but I had to go with the hooks because not only is it attractive, it's *useful*.  (Technically both projects are, but this one's been a lifesaver).  Amazing what a huge difference a piece of scrap wood and some wall hooks make.

December 

The month isn't over yet, and I DO have a dresser to paint;  but since I'm doing this post now, I'd have to say my favorite project this month has been the little Ikea jewelry box that I did last night.  So! Cute!  I'm probably going to hate it by this time next year, knowing me.





Provided the world doesn't end in two days, I'll see you guys after the holidays, unless I have something spantacular I can't wait to show you.  Everyone be safe.

Re-hacking An Ikea Hack

Part of the impending closet makeover includes doing something new and cute with my Ikea FIRA jewelry chest.  I'd stained and painted it many years ago...

BEFORE(2009)

I liked it, but the fabric lining came out pretty quickly, so I replaced it with paper in 2010, and it's been that way ever since.  Until last night...

deglosser, sandpaper, paint, wood glue, a bowl to dump the
contents of the box, craft wood for new drawer fronts 

painting the box, inside (sort of) and out

drawers, too, the fronts of which got a new face, to cover
up the little pull-holes that are, for some reason, in BOTH
sides of the drawers so you can't just turn them around. 

tiny wooden knobs, and wooden candlesticks,
spray-painted with gold metallic paint.  

AFTER!

insides and outsides of each drawer painted blue for a little
sumpn-sumpn when the drawers are opened up.   

The entire project cost me five whole dollars, for two packs of tiny wooden knobs and a pack of wooden candlesticks to use as feet.  The paint and everything I already had.  

Last night I also picked up that craigslist dresser, and it's even more awesome than I thought it would be.  I can't wait to get started painting that, too. :) 

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Impending Closet Makeover

Next on the list of Thing I Keep Meaning To Do But Haven't Yet is, apparently, my bedroom closet.   You guys have seen it...

Exhibit A: nasty shelf, piles of crap (and dinosaurs)

Exhibit B:  tiny practically worthless dresser (that is now a
nightstand anyway) and not much room for hangity clothes,
on the right side there. 

Those are both photos of the long (east) wall of my closet.  Here's the floorplan:

(Icovia Room Planner)

It's the same blue as my bathroom and bedroom, which I thought would be soothing and contiguous, but instead is just too cotton-candy cute for my level of concentration first thing in the morning when I'm trying to figure out what to wear without getting pissed off.

On the left (north) are some shelves, floor-to-ceiling, white MDF.  On the long wall are crappy, picture-of-wood stackable Cube-It cubbies and rickety shelves holding neat, organized baskets piles of crap (and dinosaurs). On the right is the clothing rod, attached to a wire shelf which supports more piles of crap.   There isn't enough room for ANYTHING.  I don't even have my shoes in there - most of them are on a shelf in the living room hallway.  Basically it looks kinda like this:

Blehhhhh.   (Olioboard)

Enter:

Ikea STOLMEN post, $30, mounting
hardware included, ivory finish.   (Picture
from Pinterest via Ikea 2011 catalog)

Dresser from Target:  $40 on craigslist

The idea:  

I love Olioboard. 

Brighter, less light-sucking and color-confusing walls!  A dresser to keep things in and put things on!  The main idea here, though, is that STOLMEN post across the long back wall, for my hanging clothes:  I can hang everything that's folded neatly piled on and stuffed into the shelves, which frees up space on the left side for shoes and linens, and space on the right side for that dresser (and some dinosaurs).  Yay!

Just kidding about the rug.  And the chandelier.  Maybe.

more room to throw shit on the floor move around, too. 

The question, Raymond:

Will I actually get around to doing this any time soon?

The world may never know.