Coat Closet Reveal!

Hey guys!

So I know I had said I hoped to post the coat closet reveal yesterday, but we got 8 inches of snow and I was too busy acting like a little kid enjoying it to blog. But the closet was finished on Saturday evening! I am in love with the way it turned out! Here are the final steps and the reveal!

So Saturday morning I repainted all of the trim and shelves in the closet so that it would look fresh and clean.

 Here is our little home made shelf painted white. I love the way that the trim on the front looks!

 Next came the process or arranging things so that the closet is still functional and holds things that need to be in there. Fortunately I had that cute lime green tin bucket to help hold/hide a few items. This was really important to me. Storage space is at a premium on our main floor and I did not want to make this useless space.

 Next came the coats and the cat. But she did not stay in there. :)

 Now you will notice the white support board for the top shelves goes to the front on both sides.

 I wanted to make this space functional as well. Usually when we come in my purse gets tossed in the floor or on a kitchen chair. So I got two Oil Rubbed Bronze coat/purse/hat hooks and mounted one on each side of the closet.

Next, our closet tends to be very dark, especially if you are trying to get something out of it at night. There is no light in there nor is there a good way to run electrical to it. The next most logical thing....tap lights! I got two of these in a pack from walmart.

 I mounted them to the wall using two-sided adhesive strips. These are the off-brand walmart ones. Update: I will rectify my mistake and go purchase command strips shortly. These suckers don't hold at all! The lights have fallen off of the wall multiple times.

 I simply stuck the lights about waist high on the inside of the closet.

 You may not be able to tel here, but they cast a lot more light into the closet.

 Look how happy and warm :)

Now came the time for the shoes. I put all of my little flats and flip flops in that banana leaf basket on the shelf. I also placed my boots here. My husbands larger shoes go under the shelf and are neatly lined up here :)

I placed a purse on each hook. The plan once it becomes hat weather is to free up one of these hooks for my husband's hats.

I love the contrast of the ORB hooks with the lime green wall. And they are perfect for my purse! Just sturdy enough. No more purse in the floor!

I had this cute wall quote sitting around waiting for the perfect place. I figured ideally we should look in here every day so it would be a fun little reminder. I will share this step in more detail at DIY Thursday!

It is so cute!

This shot gives you an idea of how much light the tap lights give off at night in the dark. They were the perfect solution!

So there you have it, our amazing re-done coat closet. I think I am in love. Fallen over boot and all.

Linking this to

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!