Spontaneous Renovation

Hey guys!

I have been a little out of my DIY mode lately. Mostly just feeling very passive. But as I mentioned before, I have gotten SO sick of having to shut our coat closet really quickly so that nothing falls out. Or feeling embarrassed when someone opens it. Meet our mess. (Just keepin it real people.)

It had become a catchall for seasonal decor items. As well as an old VS hat box and a million other items. It also has had to hold some of the less-used kitchen items because we have a Galley kitchen with limited storage.

 There were two coat bars, which initially I thought was a neat feature because it is such a deep closet but now I see that is not really necessary. And don't you love our menagerie of mismatched hangers and things in there? I mean it is a normal coat closet I suppose, but there is nothing special about it.

The only thing holding me back has been that I have wanted really cute storage to organize it but have not wanted to shell out the moolah to buy said storage. Yesterday I was in Ross and found Banana Leaf baskets (the ones I had been dreaming of!) for $5 a piece for the small ones and $8 for the big one! I may have to go back and get one more big one because that is a DEAL! But I am going to wait to see if I need one. So once I got home from Ross I began to work on a mood board for the closet. And then I decided just to make a photoshop illustration.

Pretend those ovals at the bottom are shoes. and our coats are all so nice and coordinated ;) Anyway, I decided to get right down to bidness. So I emptied out the bottom first. Initially I was only going to paint the wall under the shelf.

So I taped off that wall.

And I painted it in Glidden Lime Sorbet. I had gotten a free quart of this paint a while back and had some sitting around in the workshop. Nothing better than free!

While waiting for this to dry I took down the front bar. It was redundant but also hindering my short self from reaching the top wall, which I had decided to paint.

I also lifted the not nailed down shelves off so that I could reach easier.

Once I finished painting the top part of the wall, I was glad I did. I really like the way that it turned out. So I peeled off the tape and voila.

Now that I had removed the front bar, the back bar felt too far back. Fortunately there were holes where the bar used to be about 2 inches farther forward.

So I simply unscrewed the screws and moved it forward. Easy peasy! Now the coats won't scrape against the painted wall! I plan to go back and paint the trim wood white so I was not worried about how that looked.

With the shelves back in, it looked last night like I did a different color above the shelf. I can assure you I didn't! It was just the shadow created by the lamp I was using.

Now for that little shoe shelf at the bottom of the closet. This was super easy and we already had everything that I needed! I simply got a piece of thinner wood and cut two pieces a foot long. Yes I used the miter saw all by myself. I was so proud!

And then I took a leftover piece of plywood type board that we had and cut it to 13.1 inches, the width of the closet. It was already a foot wide (which is why I cut my boards to one foot).

I knew I wanted the shef approximately one foot off of the ground, so I stood my board up and drew a line at the end of it.

Next I leveled my board so the top edge of it was lined with my line and was flush to the wall.

I drilled four holes and screwed four longer screws to hold it in place. This is not intended to be a bench or anything that can bear extremely heavy loads so I did not see the need for any sort of anchors.

I reapeated this on the other side and this is what it looked like:

(Sorry for the suddenly terrible photo quality. It was late!) I simply layed my piece of wood across the two supports and tacked it there with a thinner nail on either side. The top ones are not nailed down at all and it really is not necessary, but i didn't want it sliding around. next I found a piece of scrap trim that we had in the workshop and cut it the same width as the shelf.

Because I didn't have any finishing nails, I decided to use liquid nails, which I like better anyway. More instand gratification. Unfortunately, the bottle was jammed so I had to wait for my husband to get home and use his brute strength to squeeze some out for me.

I pressed the trim against the raw front edge of the plywood and held it tightly for about 5 minutes until the liquid nails set. This stuff is like super glue on crack!

Overall I am so happy with the way it has turned out so far!

So that is where I stopped last night. Today I will finish painting all of the white and then put the closet together and add finishing touches. I hope to have a reveal for you this evening or tomorrow!