Closet: Before and After

With a great feeling of accomplishment...

When we moved in to our house in April '07, our house had been occupied by chain smokers, for several years, so every inch of the house smelled of stale cigarette smoke.

We painted every wall and put new floors on every inch that was not able to be cleaned with bleach.

Then when we got the carpet down (in November) we decided we were going to take it easy, since that was the last of the major things necessary to make our home comfortable and attractive.

The thing we put off doing was painting and re-doing the master closets. Yes, thank the Lord, we have 2 closets in the master, and both are walk-in! It was a lovely perk. We even went to Home Depot and spent a good hour in the home organization aisle trying to figure out exactly what we needed to buy. And then the shelving pieces stood in the garage for months.

This is what Sam's closet looks like currently, and also what mine looked like. Just a board across the top, and a bar along one side. We ended up using the board as hanging space, too, but hangers don't slide so well.

Over Memorial Day weekend I pulled all of my clothes out of my closet, and put "what I'd need for about 5 days" into Sam's. (What I needed for a few days turned out not to be enough, so I kept pulling out clothes from the other areas where I had stashed them, and adding to my minimal collection in Sam's closet.)

Last weekend we bit the bullet and started the project for real. We took out the fixtures, wiped down the walls, patched the holes, dings and dents, primed the whole thing (and the ceiling, which was almost brown), and painted.

While we were at it, we also painted the master bathroom. It had been plain primer white ever since we moved in. I had peeled the butterfly wallpaper border off, which was disguising a terrible patch job, and then it remained untouched for a year.


Finally last night, Sam and I put the shelving all up, and were incredibly pleased with the result!



When we put a few items on the racks, we laughed about how model homes and closet manufacturers and fancy-pants catalogues show closets with only about 7 items in them to show how amazingly spacious the closet is. Funny, I tend to need more than 7 items to wear from one week to another, because I don't do laundry that often!

Here is what my closet looks like now, and I love it! Sam did such a great job putting it up and figuring it out. I have yet to put everything back, but it is also a good opportunity to give some unnecessary clothes away.


Maybe next week, we'll clean up Sam's closet!