Coming out of the closet

Booyah! I finally got around to that master closet of ours! Wanna see?! Lemme give ya some color to the seriousness of this project. When I moved in with the Hubs (before he was my hubs - gasp) the house was pretty much a clean slate. Meaning, there was little decor, lots of bare walls, simple, bachelor pad. Albeit new, the pad needed a chick's touch. I will give him some bonus points, most of the main rooms were painted. However, when he built the house, the closets weren't high on his priority list. We have great closets in the bedrooms, NO linen closet, NO coat closet, NO pantry and the closets that we did have were LARGE with minimal shelving.

This is the before and after pics! I AM STOKED! I can't tell you how long I have wanted to get my hands on this puppy. Wait, yes I can. 4 years, to be exact. What I hated most about our last layout disaster .. it looked messy ALL THE TIME. Honestly, that's because it usually WAS. In my defense, it's also because I hate cleaning something that is hard to clean. Work smarter, not harder. If I have to "find a place" for things every time I clean, it's chaos so I give up and leave it where it lays. I seriously got anxiety attacks from the last monstrosity. Bonus, I think my hubs is scared to mess it up because he's done VERY well keeping it clean. Even said to me: "I can't stop looking at it!" Again, BOOYAH!

Second thing I love the most, now you can see WHAT you have. I also hated not utilizing all of my cool jewelry, shoes and accessories because I forgot about them when they were stuffed in a drawer or shelve. Now I have no excuse - except that I am a mom now and go nowhere to wear the cool stuff. Anyhoo.. I have it to see and dream.

Here are some deets on how I made this happen.

Behind the door; jewelry section; window; his side; middle drawers; my side 

Let's break this down by section, shall we?

First, we have behind the door... Leave no space un-used, I say. That was a hot mess and not really helping my shoe views. I also had all the hats hung on their own command hook where the jewelry section now is. The hats wouldn't stay and made me raging angry every time I would knock one down as I was rushing out of the closet. So, I hung them on a hat hanger from Wal-mart. I think it was like $5. Free for me because my BFF gave it to me when she didn't like it. (She knows my love for closets and hoarding tendency would allow use of it somehow - she was right!) Then I put a tension rod behind the door for my scarves.

Second, we have the jewelry wall. I'll have a full post on how I made this bad boy next week. For now, know that I didn't spend a DIME on this spot. Used tons of things from around the house to make it happen. I love it! I can see what I have, what I want to wear and don't wear enough. It also adds an element of "pretty" to a functional place and I kinda dig that. Oh and I put a curtain rod on the bottom for my heels. Lovin that my lil gals like to play with them and put them on. Winner winner chicken dinner. Too cute.

Next up, (besides the window) is His side. The hubs has some big ol feet and a lot of shoes so I wanted to make sure he could view all his goods too. Mind you.. this closet had ONE loooong shelf in it when I entered the picture. I took some of the smaller white shelves from our laundry room and put them upside down on the wall. Another Pinterest find I saw a few times. Then I put what was left of our previous make-shift shoe storage holders for the rest of his shoes. I organized his clothes in sections - work shirts, work pants on the front view; casual shirts and pants then dress shirts and pants. All sections are organized in colors as well. This helps me find my clothes and I think it helps him too. So when I hear "Babe, where's my..." I can direct him accordingly. Tops of the shelves are for another day as they have sections too and I have updated those puppies too.

Now we're in the middle. "Mouney's in the middle, where she  at? In the middle" Sorry. Old school rap flashback. I took the drawers from our old 'layout' and broke them down into their original sections and put them in the middle. This gave me much more room as they are pretty deep. We got these from Ikea and I LOVE THEM! We have them in all of our closets. They are so cheap when compared to the other brands of drawers. Easy to assemble too. These hold our t-shirts, shorts, pj's etc. I also use one of 'my' drawers for my belts, etc. I have spared him the labeling of this space but it's not far behind. Once I get the finishing pieces, I will have my labels too. In due time.

Then we have my side of heaven. I organize my clothes in order of type and color. Since all of my clothes are usually wearable to all functions or put in a drawer if they aren't, I don't need the additional breakdown as he does. My big thing was finding a place to put my purses, etc. so I could see them as well. ANd... BOOYAH!! IT happened! I was also able to secure a spot for my boots. Now.. I saw many posts on Pinterest about boots and how to store them. Since making boot hangers didn't work, tissue paper wasn't happening because I ain't wastin that goodness, and I don't get the newspaper... I had to get creative. While cleaning the hubs side, I had a TON of white shirts that weren't wearable anymore. (We have well water that is hard too so our whites don't stay white long.:( it might be the death of me.) LIGHTBULB! Stick those puppies in my boots and see if they stand. WIN! Another BOOYAH!

And I sigggghhhhh..... I too can't stop looking at it. Then the hamsters take over and I start making another list for improvements.

• Bins for the top of shelves
• Window treatment 
• Matching hangers
• Hang his/her pics
• Labels. For everything. 

Stay tuned for the how to on my jewelry board... coming Tuesday. 

Until next time...

Shona