Let's Craft Something!

Alright, so I can't take credit for this.  I mentioned to my grandparents that I was considering making a type of bookcase for my closet; not for actual books, but for miscellaneous things.  I had drawn up a blueprint, but since we don't have a power saw, it'd be a pain in the butt for me to try to make it myself.

Nana had been asking dimensions for it and pointed out a part of a desk that they had in their garage.  It was a little taller than I was originally going for, but I wasn't going to complain.  The width was about perfect and it already had shelves.

She called again a week or so later wanting to double check the dimensions one last time because "Pop was looking for something to do" that day.  I confirmed and reconfirmed that the dimensions were right and that I was sure it would work.

A mere few hours later and this beauty was finished!  The body of it is from a desk and the backing was leftover cabinet wood.


I mostly wanted something where I could put my perfume and lotion bottles so they would be out of the way, but I also realized it would be great for some of the makeup that I don't use regularly.  I'm still working on filling up the shelves, but that's an amazing feeling.

Also, you can see my repurposed cans.  I haven't gotten around to covering them, but I thought they worked quite nicely.  I may have to salvage a few more from the recycle bin.

So remember, craftranauts:  Next time you're making a yard sale pile or going through yard sales, look at things from a different angle.  Think of different purposes it could have.  Think outside of the box.

Like I really have to tell you guys that...

I know you guys are probably already tired of hearing about my closet catastrophe, but I'm determined to clean the clutter and open up to organization this month!  That's right.  These things have been slowly driving me crazy, but I'm going to get them done so that I can move on to more important and more enjoyable things!  (Like maybe finishing that stupid plarn bag...)

So when we last left off with the closet, I had just installed my new shelves and hung my clothes back up.  Which was still amazing, but those darned sweaters that were folded at the top of the shelving unit was driving me insane.  Though they were folded, it still looked sloppy -- which makes sense because bulky sweaters usually don't like stacking nicely on one another.

You may have remembered me talking about wanting to put baskets up, but complaining about how expensive they were.  After poking around on Pinterest for a while, I ran into several dollar store crafts.  I took it as a sign and ran over to our local Dollar General.  (I wish we still had our Dollar Tree, but oh well.)  I spent a while debating their clear plastic totes, which isn't quite what I wanted, but almost settled for.  I turned around and the best thing jumped out at me.


A hanging closet.  I know, I know.  I was going for horizontal space, not vertical.  The dimensions were absolutely perfect if I turned it on its side.  Four feet long, twelve inches high, and twelve inches deep.  It was the exact amount of space that I had on the top shelf.


The only drawback was that it was made almost entirely out of cloth and looked like it would have fallen on its own.  But alas!  Only two shelves down were plastic clothes hangers.  I picked them up, judged the size, and decided I could easily cut them down and use them as plastic supports.



About an hour and $6 later, ta da!  A brand new sweater shelving unit that all of my folded sweaters easily fit into -- even the bulky ones!  (You know, for the maybe three days that it snows in Alabama...)


While I was at Dollar General, I also bought a picture frame.  Intending to keep my walls mostly clear, I thought my closet would be the perfect place for one of those chicken wire jewelery holders.  Again, this was another Pinspired craft, but it was set in motion when I saw chicken wire at Zach's house in their garbage left over from building their chicken coop.

A frustratingly long time later (because I had to go with the cheap picture frame) and $8 later, I had a new chicken wire picture frame to hang my jewelery on.

I daresay I'm nearly done with my closet.  The last big hurdle there is my shoes...still.

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!