I could not have been more giddy! Rainy summer day = not having to feel guilty about staying indoors on my limited weekend time. So I stuck to my word and got crackin' on this home fix-up project.
Here's where I chose to start:
The dreaded Master Closet. I chose this mostly because I use it everyday and everyday I think to myself, "I HATE this closet! I really need to clean it out. Ugh." So that's where I started.
Our not-so-master Master Bedroom has a very small closet that is shared by the two of us (and Cosmo, our dog, during thunder storms). When we first moved in, it was your basic one shelf, one rod closet. But after working as a closet designer at The Container Store when I was fresh out of school I learned a thing or two about making the most of your closet space. To this day I absolutely LOVE their closet system, Elfa. It is one of those truly amazing do-it-all product lines that I love, love, love! Did you catch that I'm a big fan of Elfa? Anyway... our set up worked great for the first few years and now we are ready to switch it up a little. That's one of the beauties of the Elfa system. You can always change it around, and you can do it very easily.
Here are some shots of the Before closet - jam packed.
I love how treacherous this makes our closet look.
Instead of just weeding through our closet as it was still intact, we are doing a full overhaul. I knew if we just shuffled through it, we would over look somethings and keep way more than we intended. And this project was to be a purge and a major one at that. So I unloaded everything from the closet and piled it on the bed. To my surprise (and relief) we found no spiders, one penny, four hair pins, a tie and a pair of Jake's dress pants (!) at the bottom of our closet. This is exactly why I wanted to do a major purge - he didn't even know those pants were missing!
Ahhh, looking better already.
Next, I tried out a few arrangements for our new set up. Our closet is 6 feet wide but we almost doubled our space by having the second row of hanging. Originally Jake had a total of 4 feet of hanging and I had 6. We also shared 2 feet of space for longer clothes and shelves. One of our problems was that we were constantly fighting over that "long hang" space and cramming clothing onto that small 2 foot space. This is how things, like his dress pants, would end up on the floor. Then during a thunderstorm our 90lb dog would try to crawl under them and drag the pants to the back of our closet, never to be seen again. So we both agreed that adding another foot to our "long hang" space would be beneficial to us all.
With the Elfa closet system everything hangs from a top track that is mounted way up at the top of your wall. This allows the vertical bars to be shifted wherever they are needed, making installation and rearranges a snap!
One thing to remember when setting up your closet is to check your lengths. Hang a few of your longest shirts and pants to make sure everything fits as it should, with nothing dragging on the floor.
Here's a picture of the before again:
And here's what we came up with:
You might notice the extra long piece of closet rod hanging over the top and the fact that we're missing a 3 foot section of shelving. That's just they it worked out with the pieces we had. But the good news is that I can go into any Container Store and pick up right pieces I need to finish it off. But for now, it's good enough. Maybe we'll use it to hang hats....?
Jake will be using the top row of hanging and I'll take the lower. And we'll share the now longer space for "long hang". But here's the trick - I am going from six feet down to to four feet of hanging space for my clothes. That's right! I told you I was going to be purging, and this is my incentive. I want every piece of clothing that goes back into that closet to be something I love or use regularly. This could be a challenge...
And with that, I will leave you so I can shovel through this:
But first, I'll take a little time for this:
1 comment:
And when you're done with this closet, wanna come over and do mine?! Or heck, help me organize my whole house? I can't wait to see the end result of this!!
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