In my last post, I thought it would be a good idea to remove our closet that blocks the flow of one of our main thoroughfares. However, after thinking about the fact that the flooring might look choppy since we’d have new flooring right next to the old, we decided to keep the closet for now. We’ll remove it when we renovate the entire kitchen since we plan on expanding the kitchen into the space where the closet currently resides.
Because the kitchen renovation is a ways away, I thought I’d at least try to make the closet more functional for now. The closet had one high shelf with a coat rack. We have a coat closet at the front of the house already so another one didn’t really make sense especially since we needed more practical storage. Also, the shelf was so high that for us shorties (that would include my entire family), we’d have to get the step stool to reach the shelf or risk things falling on our heads. The closet also had the last vestiges of the ugly mustard color that poisoned the entire first floor when we moved in.
Here’s the nasty flashback:
Try not to cringe at all the ugliness!
I have a lot of wood in my shed left over from the treehouse we built a couple years ago, so the only thing I needed to buy for the shelves was caulk and a few smooth trim pieces for the front of the shelves.
Here’s the before:
And the after:
To make the shelves, I found this video particularly useful.
I’ll just touch on the basics since the video does a good job of explaining how to install the shelves.
1. First I painted the closet the same blue color as I used in the kids’ bathroom (Palladian Blue by Benjamin Moore).
2. Measure and cut your ledgers. The ledgers are what hold up the shelves and should be the same length from the back to the front of the closet as your shelves.
That’s me measuring. 🙂 I try to put any pic I can of me in these posts since I rarely have any!
These are the ledgers. I marked the studs first to make sure I drilled into them. I also made sure to use a level so that the ledgers wouldn’t be all wonky. I sunk the screws below the surface of the wood so that I could dab wood putty on the holes later and paint over them. I also put one coat of paint on the ledgers before they were installed so I wouldn’t have to paint as much when they were on the wall. Also, don’t worry about any gaps in the corners because they will be covered with caulk.
3. Cut the plywood to fit on the ledgers using a circular or table saw (I used a circular). I made sure that the plywood was as long as the ledgers so that I could nail trim pieces along the entire front of the shelves. I cut the shelves a little shorter than the width of the closet so that they could easily slide in but still sit comfortably on the ledgers (the video explains this pretty well).
4. I cut trim pieces for the front of the shelves to make the finished product more polished and nailed them in place. I also caulked all the ledgers and plywood pieces to the wall to make them look more “built in.”
5. Get some baskets and organize because you’re done!
All baskets are from Tar-jay. All our dog paraphernalia, reusable grocery bags, and cleaning supplies are now neatly corralled.
This was a fairly easy project that was definitely budget friendly since I had most of the materials already. Now, things are at a good height and instead of just one high shelf, we have three shelves for more of our crapola.
Next on the list is tackling the master bedroom. Painting is first! I LOVE painting! Not really.
