Nora's Closet

 We hate the closets in our house.  They aren't very big, and they all have this useless wire shelving that seems to be just randomly placed.  We are gaining a beautiful baby girl, but losing an entire office space that housed a lot of "stuff".  We are also gaining all of the "stuff" that comes with having a baby.  Clothes, toys, books, etc.  We knew something had to be done about the closet.  In fact, it's the one house project that I felt NEEDED to be done before Nora makes her arrival.  So we finally got the nerve to tackle it.

Here is the before... We hated the wire shelving, to bad we didn't get a picture with all the stuff and creative stacking that was involved.

First, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking at closet ideas and tutorials.  Doug had some ideas of his own, but I always feel like I have to watch videos and look at tutorials before I make a big decision.  Here are some tutorials I felt were helpful: Shanty-2-Chic, Pick Up Some Creativity,

Spackling all the holes...

We also had to figure out the layout.  The best thing I found on the web was at Easy Closets, a company who does custom closets.  You put in the measurements of your closet and the style of closet (reach-in, walk-in, etc.) and they suggest a design for you.  Then you can play around with it, adding shelves, removing shelves, etc. until you like what you see.  They can then send you a kit to build your custom closet.  But we are better than that.  We don't need a kit!  We can DIY (or DIO?)!  The kit they would have sent would have been nearly $400.  We were able to make our own for a fraction of the cost.  And I think it's even sturdier. 

Painting the closet.  We decided to go with a clean white.  After the paint dried, Doug drew the outline of the closet to show where the support boards would go.  

Buying the supplies.  1x2's for the supports.  We bought two big pieces of MDF board and had them rip it into 14" wide pieces.  Way cheaper than buying the pre-cut particle board, or buying the shelving boards that have the little holes in it. 

Cutting the boards.

He got reprimanded for not wearing safety goggles in the picture above.  Here is a picture to prove that safety is first!

After all the boards are cut.  Good job, Doug!  Sawdust for miles.

We pre-painted the boards.

Putting up the first support board.  Some tutorials say to glue these on, but we just screwed them into the studs.

The top board. 

Adding a shelf and making sure everything is level.

Shelves and support boards in place.  Just needs the vertical board.

All the shelves are in place.  Now we just have to finish painting and add the rods!

Completed but empty!

Amanda filling up the new closet! 

We have had a lot of hand-me-downs given to us, and we put some bins up for all the odds-and-ends. 

Doug did an AMAZING job, and I helped a little too!  The space is so much more useful.  We can fit 3x what we could fit in there before!  I feel much more at ease with things being organized.  We hope to re-do all of our closets soon.  But not too soon, lol! 

All done, except for the doors!!!