Mom’s Closet Redo: Part 1

My mom has desperately needed her closet redone ever since we moved to our new house almost 8 years ago. (I don’t live there anymore but it’s still home to me 😀 ) This past weekend we finally got started on it, and so far we have made great progress. Her closet has always been the dumping ground for things that don’t have a home 🙁 and that has always really upset her. I don’t blame her either, I would be upset too.

 Because I am still terrible at remembering to take before pictures, most of them were taken after we had already cleared out half of the closet. That entire hanging rod was filled with clothes.

 William. He is the best and worst helper all at the same time 🙂 he likes to get into stuff and make a mess.

The good thing about all that junk, is that it made for some hilarious clearing out time. We found things that were easily older than I am! By the time we finished sorting through everything, she had given away 7 or 8 trash bags full of clothes, shoes, and other random stuff. we joked around and called it “The Purge”

The awful light fixture that looks like it belongs in a garage or mental institution. It is definitely going to be replaced by a chandelier. Every girl deserves a chandelier in her closet 🙂

Once we got the extra stuff out of the way, our next task was to get some of the not so wonderful shelving off of the wall. The original owner of the house had put in those wire closet systems. My dad had already taken some of them off a few months back, and now it was up to us to get rid of the last one. By the time that last shelf finally came down, I was in a terrible mood. The brackets that attach them to the wall are awful and are a pain in the butt to take down. I ended up putting holes in the wall because I had to yank out the anchors.

By the time this picture was taken, I was already thoroughly frustrated and had poked a hole in the wall. Luckily we already knew we needed to do some patching and it wasn’t a big deal.

Power tools! 5 years ago I asked for a brand new set of power tools for Christmas, and I have yet to get them. All I got was a hand-me-down drill from my dad (not the one pictured, I’m using his fancy one with the light on it), but hey it was free and works like a charm. Plus now I can slowly grow my power tool collection and pick the ones that I want! Hello bright green Ryobi set from Home Depot 🙂

After the purge of all that extra stuff, we went out and grabbed a ClosetMaid shoe organizer and William and I put it together. Well I put it together and William sat there wondering what I was doing.

When it came time to use the hammer he kept trying to help. He ended up banging my fingers a couple of times and then got bored 🙂

William and grandma 🙂

It’s starting to look like a functioning closet with no junk in it! We removed the bottom hanging bar to make space for the shoe organizer because it was mainly collecting clothes that didn’t belong to my mom. She was worried she wouldn’t have enough space for everything, but there’s plenty of space once we cleaned out the dresser in the bedroom that she and my dad share.

The four baskets on the top shelf we grabbed at Home Goods. They are the perfect size for stowing things my mom doesn’t use all the time, and they have lids so an excessive amount of dust wont collect on everything. She’s using two of them for sheets and misc linens, one for purses, and one for scarves etc.

Eventually we are going to paint the closets and repaint the bathroom (shh don’t tell me dad), hang a nice mirror my mom already has above the dresser, and take down the unused hanging bar on the right so random stuff wont accumulate.

We worked three days on everything and we still have a to-do list as long as our done-list. We still need to find a new light fixture, paint the dresser silver (super excited about that project!), reupholster and paint the vanity stool, and replace the shelving brackets with nicer ones. Since I live out of town, we have to divide up all the tasks into separate weekends.

The closet already looks a million times better than it did when we started though, and I can’t wait till we are done with it!