Master Closet Makeover

 

Ta-da! Master closet in progress! This baby has taken about a month so far, with about 6-8 hours put into it every week. We began by decluttering, and then proceeded to finding a home for everything in the closet. As you can see in the image above, there is natural light coming in from the left! That would be the exposed window. The first thing I did when we walked in there was tear down the shelving that covered it up. The bedsheets are placed at the back, above the dresses, just like the closet plan. We did have some holdups, due to California Closet specifics. The handles, for example, were going to be brass/gold handles with a really pretty design on it from Home Depot, but when I unscrewed the white handles on the drawers, they did not fit. The handle holes were too far apart, and I'm guessing specific for California Closets. I am also still searching for bars that fit the closet so we can hang more clothing. The handbags and pocketbooks are standing up with the help of shelf dividers. 

We placed the jeans in their own little cubbies. They were in the bedroom before in one of the dressers. I want to say we got rid of about 15 pairs of older jeans? It looks like a department store!! And the purses are right to the right and above the shoes. The shoe storage is my favorite, considering that the shelving was already in place and it was just a matter of repositioning the size of each cubby.  

And the sweetest deal of all--the painted and stenciled wall. That sucker took a lot of sweat and paint fights to get done. Melissa was a huge help since she loves doing really tedious tasks. I thought the stencil would be bigger, but it was only about two of the damask designs. So there was a lot of repositioning and taping the stencil until it was finished.

 

Our future plans are to add chandeliers to replace the two lighting fixtures, and to go through the drawer space. We're also going to hang a mirror, since the mirror we bought from Home Depot did not come with all the parts. The last thing to install will be scarf storage on the wall. We will be using the FINTORP 31" rail from IKEA. 

Some of the things that we changed from the plan are, maybe the handles on the drawers,  and the hanging space.

Here is a list of everything that we completed in the space:

1. Decluttered: removed all of the unnecessary items and older "donatable" clothing.
2. Removed shelving by window.
3. Hung Cindy's blouses.
4. Assigned a home for items such as blouses, sweaters, dresses, photography supplies, shoes, belts, and ties. 
5. Painted and stenciled the wall.
6. Changed the lightbulbs. 
7. Vacuumed and cleaned off shelving.

 

 

Master Closet Make Over Plans

Closet Plan for main wall

  

I have been excited to organize the master closet from Day 1. And again, I don't have a before picture, but maybe I can describe it for you. Before we worked on decluttering and organizing this gorgeous closet space, it was basically a storage room, and a dreaded space in the bedroom. Most clothing that they wore was in the dressers in the bedroom. There was a window covered up by shelving, and some drawers that were left off of their tracks. So it was really dark, without the natural lighting and with one of the light bulbs burnt out. We joke about it now, but the dogs didn't even know about the closet until we decluttered it.

But the interesting part of the closet is that it was potentially gorgeous, like a super model in her awkward puberty years? The actual bones of the closet were installed by California Closets, with whom I have a very strong love/hate relationship with at the moment. There was a lot of storage space, but it wasn't really fit for either Cindy or Greg.

It pained me to hear Cindy talk about how unhappy she was with the space, when all I saw was how amazing the space was. But then, she was the one who had to live with the closet, when I just saw it when I visited. So after warming up with the bedroom and the linen closet, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work! I started by sending her my vision for the space. She told me that she wanted funky colors, but in a Victorian style. Something feminine and neat, where things were easily found.

So I turned on my handy three-year-old Dell laptop and opened up my best and only program for interior design planning--Paint. Hey, you gotta use what you got! I emailed her the plans for the closet which included damask wall paper, wall scarf storage, exposing the window and a giant floor to ceiling mirror. And then I realized that wall paper in a closet was pretty expensive and impractical. At least for this space. 

So here are my gorgeously composed Paint interior design plans. The results will be in another post, perhaps tomorrow. ENJOY!

 

Organizing Update: Bathrooms

Bathrooms. The place where cosmetics and toiletries go to die. And since moving to New York, the bathroom is my least favorite place in a home. HOWEVER, this magical bathroom has an unlimited amount of space for his and hers supplies, towels, laundry and more! This past week, Cindy and I worked on decluttering two of the bathrooms in their lovely home. The first, being the master bathroom. There are two large under sink storage cabinets, four drawers, and a whole linen closet. I need to take some better pictures next week, but I have some pictures that show how many unnecessary things we people keep in bathrooms. For example, everyone thinks that medications belong in this space. Unless you keep a glass for tap water next to your sink, I think not. The only medications that should be up here are for cramps and other bathroom-related issues I won't list. The picture above is before we decluttered one of the cabinets. And the picture below is the after picture! That is all that is left from above. And we haven't gotten to organizing everything. We decided to leave the organizing step for later so we can get to decluttering more of the house.

 

Oh look, it's me! We worked on putting the bed sheets that were folded at the bottom of this linen closet in the master closet. I'll post more on that later this week. So now, the laundry basket is placed in this space, and out of the way, to create a more open layout in the bathroom and to better expose one of the windows. Yeah, I'm wearing Scooby Doo boxers...

 

 Finally, we went to the girls' bathroom to declutter years of "growing up" products. Two flat irons, a curling iron, scruncis, and lots and lots of Proactiv and hair products were thrown out, clearing two cabinets and resulting in just the items you see below. The blow dryer and flatiron that were left over went in a drawer below the sink storage area. It fit perfectly. 

In total, we were able to create two donation bags of bed sheets. In total, there were five or six donation bags of bed sheets from other areas. The next week, Cindy was able to donate some really nice silk bed sheets and a couple of other pairs of bed sheets to a family friend that lost their belongings to a house fire. They were able to go to someone that would use them right away. It's been amazing to see what has resulted in this decluttering and organizing binge I have been on. I have been able to give my belongings and help gather Cindy's belongings in order to support a family friend after a house fire, thrift my clothing to start an herb garden, and support Cindy in creating 20+ donation bags for people who could really use what we see as old clothing and clutter. It has been the most liberating experience, and it's only the beginning! And to see the sidewalk lined up with another 20+ garbage bags of the expired or broken clutter from the Cindy/Greg household was amazing. I see it sort of like getting rid of negative energy and giving more space to positive, new energy. 

 

So far, I want to say there have been between 20-30 donation bags, 20-30 bags of throwaway items. 

We have decluttered and partially organized parts of the bedroom, the master bathroom, the master closet, the hallway closet, the girls' bathroom, one of the bedrooms and are on to the kitchen.

I'll admit that I have been really bad at taking before and after pictures, so I promise I will do a better job. I get so excited to just get to work that I don't really have an accurate showing for it. But every time that happens, I realize that this is what I really love doing. It sounds silly when I say it out loud "I'm so excited to declutter the bathrooms!" But it really feels great to be supporting someone clear space in their home for more things and, on a more spiritual hippy-dippy level, more opportunity. So thank you again and again to Cindy and Greg for giving me the opportunity to start in their home and trusting me with their belongings. It's going to look like a homey showroom when everything is done!!