the good, the bad, and the ugly: the closet reveal

Alrighty, well it took a lot longer than I had hoped, but it's finally done! Our closet makeover project is finally finished!!

Long story short, we downsized big time (master closet- wise) when we moved into this house. The condo before, had a decent sized walk-in, that even accomodated a 6 drawer dresser.

This is just PART of my half in the old condo...

Unfortunately, the new closet is tiny, and has a window... which means we've lost a whole wall for storage! Also, Cory's dresser didn't fit, so he became 6 drawers short for storage!! We knew we'd have to do something to make the new closet work - there were only 2 wire shelves in there!

Here's what we did:

1. PURGE - We went through everything when we packed up (gathered 3 large garbage bags), and then again when we moved in (another large box). For the meantime, we stored our off-season clothes in the guest bedroom.

2. DETERMINE STORAGE NEEDS - Cory prefers folded storage; I like hanging storage, but I have double the amount of clothes to begin with. We already had an 8-drawer dresser for me (purchased a year ago), but he needed something to replace his lost drawers. We really needed more than just the two shelves; perhaps we could work with the one good feature of the space - height??

3. DETERMINE BUDGET - Since I lost my job for 3 months this year, we were no longer able to afford to hire someone to outfit our closet - this was going to be all on me! We determined that since this wasn't going to be our "forever" house, it made no sense to spend a ton - we also wanted to re-use as much as possible (which was really just two white Rubbermaid wire shelves.) Thankfully, we had factored in storage needs in our moving plan, and a gift card burning a hole in our wallet!

4. TAKE MEASUREMENTS; GO SHOPPING - This was actually the most stressful part for me!! We did this project in two parts : folded storage; hanging storage. But despite having a clear picture in my head, and what I thought was a great little shopping list... we had to return to the store more than once for parts ( I blame this mostly on the fact that we were matching 2 different brands of closet organizer together, and a little bit my carelessness!!)

I mentioned doing two stages: Hanging and Folded. The folded came first, because quite simply: we needed to replace Cory's dresser, and I was sick of looking at his three large boxes at the foot of the bed. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to replace our nightstands!

Since we purchased a very large mattress last year, the tables we had, just weren't cutting it. They were too small, too short, and the drawers stuck. We had the space, so we made the decision to purchase small dressers to use as nightstands. Thankfully, they were exactly the right size and height! We went with Ikea's 3-drawer MALM dressers in black/brown . We also got a 3rd one, to put in the closet, giving Cory back his 6 drawers. I also gained 3, which was nice.

Next up, was the hanging storage. I had really gotten used to a two-level hanging system, so we decided to build up. My plan was to "simply" move the shelf I had now, up closer to the ceiling, and then add another row of shelving (3/4 the length to allow for an unobstructed dress-hanging area) underneath.

Unfortunately, I hadn't properly taken into consideration the hardware - the "clips" were actually anchors!! So we were left with LOTS of large holes:

Thankfully, my man is no stranger to fixing messes and he had those holes filled in no time. Sanding and painting took place the next night, and those babies weren't even noticeable!

Then came the addition of a lower shelf for me, and a top shelf for him! Ta-da! A quick clean up and I was re-loading in no time!!

Overall, it's still a closet, and the transformation probably doesn't look all that different.... but the difference it makes in storage in UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Absolutely worth the wait!