Home Renovations: Closet Makeover

I did a thing. I know, I've been doing a lot of changing things around my house, but this was a renovation that had not even crossed my mind once during all these months of home-makeover-ing. It actually all came about because of an entirely different project I was working on. I was considering doing a month long minimalist capsule wardrobe, so I pared down my closet to about 10% of its usual size. I put everything else into storage thinking it would only be for this month long challenge, but at the end of my 30 days, I realized how much I really loved having less. As much as I love my clothes and putting together outfits, my closet was so overly full that making any kind of decision about what to wear was not a quick process; I usually devoted a Sunday afternoon to planning outfits for the week. If said Sunday afternoon didn't work its way into my schedule and I was left to try to decided each day before work, that process was usually accompanied by a certain degree of stress and indecision from too many options.

Having this extremely pared down wardrobe took all the stress out of it. Yes, this is what my closet looks like when "extremely pared down." Plus, the feeling of getting so much wear out of closet clothes means it doesn't feel like a waste of money to invest in really nice pieces because I know they won't sit on a shelf. In the midst of this experiment, this space was suddenly very empty(er than ever before) and I noticed something: My closet is extremely ugly. With all the renovations going on in major rooms of the house, this dinky little closet hadn't really crossed my mind at all, mostly because it was so full of clothes, it didn't really matter what it looked like. But now that I can see the walls and floor again, I decided it was time for a closet makeover.

(Side note: See those photos directly above? They seem pretty harmless, right? I never thought that sharing photos of my messy closet would open me up to ridicule or criticism, because it's just a closet for pete's sake! and I've rarely seen a clean one no matter who owned it. But, unfortunately after I poseted these photos a few years ago for a spring cleaning post, one woman thought it the perfect fuel to attack me. Super weird! Because I knew this woman personally, I can say with all certainty that everything about her life was a total mess and I loved her anyway, but in order to make herself feel better about her own insecurities, she chose to attack me for this. Like, "Ah Ha! I knew you weren't perfect!" Um, yes, I know that too, which is why I never said I was and also why I didn't mind sharing photos of my messy closet. It was so strange and desperate, so please, do not follow in that woman's footsteps. We all have messes in our life, I'm not judging you for yours, don't judge me for trying to clean up mine. Actually, you can judge if you want, I know you're a mess too :D)

I wanted to take these photos at a time when it's been a few months since I have cleaned and organized because while it doesn't always look this bad, this is the state I am constantly struggling against. Since there wasn't much storage when we moved in, I installed a shower curtain rod on the left side of the closet and used it to hang up skirts. It worked about as well as you would expect. No matter how I stacked all the shoe boxes, the floor was always totally covered in shoes, and I have always wanted to have some kind of shoe rack for proper storage.

The only caveat to any changes I made to this space is that ultimately, the hot water heater is directly behind the back wall and has to remain accessible. Its access panel was just a piece of sheet rock which had gotten wet a couple of times when we had to fix the hot water heater, not to mention that every time we had to access it, the sheet rock crumbled a little more and got a little more flimsy.

I knew I wanted this closet to blend well with the color palette of the bedroom and yet still be its own unique space. Plus, I had a lot of pink paint leftover and didn't want it to go to waste. I spent at least a week looking at different kinds and prints of wallpapers before landing on this pink hydrangea print from Rifle Paper Co. Are they pricey? Yes, but when one roll covers 60 square ft., and it takes at least three rolls of the cheap peel and stick stuff on Amazon to cover the same amount of space, the price difference really isn't so huge. At $35 per roll for 3 rolls, the cheap stuff would cost me $105. One roll of the good stuff from Rifle costs $130. I think I can swing a difference of $25 to have something really lovely. ***Hahaha, it ended up taking 3 rolls, so the joke was really on me costwise, but this was the paper that I really wanted to use, so I guess it's worth it. So, this was the little idea board I created to help me visualize putting it all together. Yes, in the end, we did decide to get a closet kit from Lowes to make better use of this space.

You may notice from the before pictures that this closet was rather hastily and cheaply thrown together. There are raw edges and nails sticking out everywhere, plus this shelving hangs down over the bar making it really difficult to put hangers on there without breaking the necks off the plastic ones. Eesh, it was just such terrible work and ugly to boot.

My first step was to take all the hooks out of and off of the door, spackle the holes and then paint over it in pink. Behold the "Before" Door!

Once it had dried, I went back and waxed the paint so it would set and shine a little. After that, I had a plan, and foolishly thought it would really only take us a day. Yes, after all this time fixing up this house, I was still dumb enough to think that. I might have been right if I had ordered enough wallpaper to begin with, but I didn't, so that set us back an extra week. In the mean time, with the door painted and one roll of paper on the walls, I decided to go ahead and put in the flooring. You may think that peel and stick tile is easy. To some degree it is, but first the floor had to be thoroughly cleaned, then tile applied, then a layer of sealent applied to the tile and lastly, a gloss layer to protect the tile from scuffs and make it shine.

The next steps were to: strip all the shelving and cheap molding, hammer in all the nails and staples left sticking out everywhere, and spackle the gaps. Then Mr. Bleu put up this beautiful blush hydrangea wallpaper for me while I tackled the tile on the floor.

Mr. Bleu built a new door for the hot water heater so we would have easier access. Then we bought some new molding that matched the decor and didn't look so chintzy and put it up along the floor and ceiling. We also bought a closet kit from Lowes and installed it to have a better organizational system. Yes, yes, it does mean having less clothes, but isn't that what I am aiming for anyway?

The last and perhaps my least favorite thing to do at the end of this very long day was to get all my clothes off the floor and put everything away neatly. But, I did it because the finish line was so close I just had to get it done instead of letting it sit unfinished for one more night. So, let's take the tour!

Do you love it? I DO!! Now, obviously there are some things that no longer fit in my closet and I will have to go through them to decide if I should part with them or find a place elsewhere. But, I am willing to do the work and make those hard choices because I absolutely love how this closet looks and I don't ever want it to go back to the way it was again. Suddenly this seemingly tiny closet has enough room that I use it as a changing room too.

I am looking at getting a shoe rack that will fit in this space because I don't want to put them on these very nice shelves, but other than that, I think we're all done with this space. It cost more money than I thought it would and definitely took longer than I thought it would, but I definitely wouldn't take it back.

This closet may not have been on my radar in the beginning, but I now have an absolutely stunning space that I love and truly want to keep mindfully minimal and clutter free.