A Closet Case

Back again! I bet you didn’t believe I would post again until February. ;) My second remodel for this week is the master bedroom closet. When I bought the house I still wasn’t completely sold on the master closet. I thought it was way too small and it barely qualified for a walk in. In fact, I didn’t even keep my clothes in this closet for the first year of living here because it was too dirty and dysfunctional. There was only one bar in the main section and gross markings all over the left wall as you walked in. Here is a before shot:

… not cute and definitely not well designed for maximizing clothes storage. In mid July, like most projects, I started by ripping everything out, patching all the holes, and cleaning the walls. Some of the nails from the ceiling were coming out, as is normal in older homes, so I also fixed those and scraped off all the popcorn on the ceiling. (Yes, the only 3 rooms in my house that have smooth ceilings are the bathrooms and my closet, weird, I know). One day I would like to remove the popcorn from the rest of the house, but that is something I will leave to the professionals. The ceiling also has an opening that allows access to the attic - the trim and door for that were unpainted wood, so I spruced them and the ceiling up with two coats of ceiling paint.

The walls were then painted the well known, Behr Gobi Desert. I debated about painting a fresh pop of color in the closet to contrast the subtle color in the bedroom, but after rethinking I determined it’s just a closet and a neutral color would be better for resale. After all the prep work, a trip to IKEA was calling my name!

On an early Sunday morning, my mom, younger sister, Kristin, and I piled into my little Civic for the drive to IKEA Charlotte. Three hours in the car, three in the store and we were standing in the parking lot trying to figure out Civic Tetris. With the IKEA employees doubting us, we crammed three closet units, all the interior components, Kristin’s new desk, dresser, and desk chair all into my little car. (side note: this is not the first time I have crammed more stuff into my car than previously thought possible.) Four hours later we were home (had to drive super slow thanks to the small bedroom weighing down my car). After Craig’s help carrying each box inside, I took Monday off work to construct all the components. Despite the IKEA picture instructions warning me not to build it without two people, I finished in one long day. I did fall off the ladder once and almost get squashed by a huge closet unit, but it’s all worth it in the end, right? Take a looksie:

Note: It’s hard to get one good photo of the entire closet due to its size. So I will just post pictures of different angles and features. As you can see in the above picture, there is a closet inside the closet. The second closet just houses the heat pump so it really is unusable space. I really had to maximize all the closet to fit all of our clothes. Lucky for us, we don’t own a lot of clothes and I don’t have a shoe or purse fetish, just a love for a well organized space. Sigh… :)

This is Craig’s section on the left:

I have two sections of the closet which are organized by work clothes and then weekend clothes. I then organize my shirts and pants by color (light to dark) to making finding a particular shirt easier and it makes it pretty. This is the best picture I could get of my side:

Let’s start from the top, above each section is a canvas box for storing out of season clothes. You can also see the “door” to the attic and the new light fixture. I really wanted to hang a fancy chandelier in here but decided my budget was more important in this situation, so I went with a left over $8 fixture from updating the hallway lights.

The top most portion of each unit is storage for purses or hats, etc. Eventually, I would like to get baskets to put the purses in so that it’s easier to reach. Currently, I have to get Craig to reach anything on the top section, hence why I have been using the same purse for the last two months.

The next section is shirts, oh my! Craig’s side will eventually have a pull out on one side for ties and belts. Unfortunately, IKEA stopped making the metal tie/belt holder I liked and now just has a cheap plastic type. All of the hangers are light wooden hangers to give a cohesive look and because they tend to leave less hanger dents on shirts.

My work pants section has a pull out rack that allows easier access to the pants. The remaining pant sections just have bars and pant hangers.

Just above my work pant section, I am going to add a jewelry/ belt organizer the next time I get to IKEA. I previously had my eyes set on a wooden jewelry organizer which of course they discontinued, so I needed some time to decide if I liked the new version. I think I do… thoughts?

Last, but not least, shoes! I know this will come as a shocker, but I really don’t have very many shoes. So the two racks per unit are just fine for me. Eventually, I might steal Craig’s second rack because he only owns two pairs of shoes for work, black and brown. He really doesn’t see the need to have any others. Hehe. We store our tennis shoes and sandals in the downstairs closet.

So, do you like it?? Lexi does!

You might be wondering were I hang my dresses, no? Don’t care? Too bad, I am going to tell ya. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t figure out a way to store my dresses in the closet because you need a long section. I did think about kicking Craig out all together and using his section for dresses, but in reality I only have 5 or so dresses and I really only wear them 5 or so times a year. So I keep my dresses and dress shoes in the second bedroom closet along with Craig’s and my suits. We wear them so infrequently that we don’t mind going into the other room to get them.

Wow, that was a long post! Sorry, I just wasted 10 mins of your life reading this. ;) Come visit and you can see the closet in person, it’s much better that way!