Let's Craft Something!

Warning:  What you are about to see is a horrible mess that I am ashamed of.  Please do not judge me based upon the state of this closet!

You know those projects that you don't plan and you cannot plan for?  The projects that just run at you like some kind of harlot and demand that you do them next?  That was my closet.

I was going to put away some clothes that had just been washed and hung up when the monstrosity that was my closet reared its head and told me, "Not today" (like I was the god of death or something).  It was a combination of things that made my closet horrible: the floor was cluttered with shoes, clothes that had fallen off the hanger, and things I was too lazy to put away, so I just kicked it in the closet.



Another thing that didn't help was the fact that this particular closet has not been remodeled or anything since about 1985 when my parents bought the house.  (I wish I was joking, but I'm not.)  In retrospect, I should have just sucked it up and redid the closet when I moved into this room, but I didn't.  The closet itself is tiny -- about 55" deep and 44" wide -- so in such a small space, having as much room to store things is essential.  If I weren't a pack rat this would have been a lot easier.

As soon as I decided that I was going to remodel my closet, I put on jeans and ran to Home Depot.  After probably an hour at debating the different, cheap wire shelves with a wonderfully helpful associate named Kristen, it came down to a numbers game.  I had looked at an $89 kit that was made for four to six foot closets.  I, however, prefer the cost efficient method to the time and effort efficient; I will do the extra work if it means saving $20.  Kristen offered to give a rough estimate for how much it would be outside the kit.  She quoted doing it completely yourself at around $120, so I bought the kit.

I actually stared having regrets when I started pulling everything out of my closet.  I started with the floor and it wasn't so bad until the large cardboard box I had gotten for the shoes in there began to overflow.  After I got all of my clothes out, it looked like my closet had projectile vomited onto my bed.





I trudged on, however, and learned just how bad my closet was.  Remember when I said the closet hadn't been touched since at least 1985?  The wire shelves were sticky and when I looked at my hands I had flakes of black stuff and mystery glitter all over them.  That's not the worst part, though.  The shelves weren't cut properly or something and they were held together in the corner by zip ties.  Zip ties!  Most of the screws weren't even serving any purpose since many of the hooks had long since broken off.



That was just the shelves.  The walls looked terrible, too.  Aside from all the holes, it was obvious that this closet hadn't seen love in a while.  The paint was that "white a long time ago" color; I guess I could call it vintage white now haha.  There were scuffs all along the bottom where shoes had been kicked against the wall without a care, places where the paint had chipped off, and something where I guess someone had tried to attach something... I don't even know.  It was a mess -- a hot mess.


My next step was trying to cover all the holes and dents in the walls.  This was a chore by itself, not to mention sanding the plaster!  In the end, I didn't much care if it was perfect because it is just a closet after all, so there are still ridges where the plaster was.  It's not a huge deal because I also plan on using as much of the space as possible and many of them will end up being covered up.


While the plaster was drying, I took the baseboards off and gave them a nice, white coat of paint.  These are the baseboards that I remember from my childhood.  We've updated the rest of the baseboards in the house to match the more modern style, but again, it's a closet.

After all the plaster had dried and was sanded as best it was going to get, I took a dinner break, then went to see Zach for a few hours.  When I came home, though, I put on my first coat of paint.  We had bought a very, very light blue to do on a ceiling -- but then we realized how hard ceiling painting was and decided against it.  With a whole gallon of it just sitting in the garage, I opened it up and rolled it on.

Since it was already about 1 a.m. and I still had to wait for that coat to dry, I just called it a night, played some Skyrim and slept on the couch.  (My bed was occupied by all the clothes, remember?)

I woke up early -- for me at least -- and got started with my second coat and touch ups.  It wasn't long before that was dry, so I went ahead and nailed in my baseboards and did some touch ups.  It's not a big deal or anything, but when doing white baseboards, I like to paint over the nails -- seeing the white interrupted by a dot of silver and knowing it's a nail head always bugs me.  Plus, my hammer had scuffed up a few places.


It wasn't perfect, but it was beautiful.  This crisp, light blue color that reminds me of clean laundry, freshly painted baseboards to match, and all this room!  I laid in the floor looking up to the ceiling for a while, just reveling in how much I had already accomplished.  Once you get to a milestone like that, it's hard for me to pick back up.  I took a long break, including making lunch and a gallon of tea, before I started back.


This seems like the best $89 I have spent in a while.  The box is an impenetrable fortress, though!  Seriously, I spent so much time fighting with that stupid box.  Knowing that all of the shelves and things were metal, I considered lighting it on fire to open it; then I remembered the instructions and little plastic bits.  Tip for manufacturers: don't glue your boxes completely shut.

The kit, thankfully, was much easier than opening the box.  The only thing that took me a while was sawing the tracks because my closet is an awkward 55" deep.  I know I could have probably used something a little better than a hacksaw, but it's what the instructions recommended and I really didn't want to break anything.


After following the instructions, ta da!  I had a new set of shelves and what felt like a lot more room in my closet.  It was about 24 hours from the idea to remodel my closet to the time that I started loading my clothes back into it.



Is it completely finished?  No.  I still have some storage needs (such as shoes), but it's a great start and it's oh so much better! Not only that, but I did it completely by myself -- paint, assembly, everything.  Thanks, ClosetMaid!