Hello all. Hopefully you had lovely holidays and are not suffering from January weather too much. I, for one, am sick of subzero temps. One the one hand, the cold keeps me inside to actually work on some projects. One the other hand, the cold makes it difficult to work on said projects when the only place to use saws and sanders is in the unheated garage,. Brrrrrrr.
We are slowly plugging away on two things: the Garage Entry Catch-All room and the basement bookcase. I will share the bookcase project once we are actually finished with it. What started out as a two weekend project turned into an eight weekend project.
I can share a very measly update on the Garage Entry Catch-All room though. If you recall from the Before & Aspirations post for this room, I needed the room to function as an entryway, mudroom, breakfast nook, den, butler’s pantry, and storage facility for all seasonal outerwear. And some sports gear. And diaper bags. And umbrella strollers. And gym bags. Needless to say, the first step is getting the only closet sorted. That closet is the thing that stands between order and the shoe apocalypse.
As you can see, the organization approach was to have random bins and buckets willed with gear and shoes. Then more piles of shoes all over the floor. There were also hats, mittens, etc. lying around getting dirty on the floor. And several large nails the previous owners pounded into the already damaged wall for hanging up whatever. The previous owners were really into having giant nails sticking out in random places all over. I didn’t take a closeup photo, but the paint in the closet was in really bad shape, so after I emptied the closet, I painted it Sherwin Williams Mindful Grey. I also painted the single overhead shelf white so that it would be brighter in the closet overall since the sliding oak doors don’t allow for much light.
I emptied out the bins from my husband’s ” storage system”. The poor guy is just horrible at being organized or tidy in any way. We all have our weaknesses! I used three different Kallax units from IKEA to fill the closet for optimum vertical storage space and coat space. A few cloth bins from Target (Pillow Fort brand) fit perfectly in the shelf squares for the hats,mittens, scarves, and random cold weather wear. I filled the rest of the squares with shoes, flipflops, roller skates, snow boots, diaper bags, and reusable shopping bags. The broom hangs on a hook, and the swiffer can fit without getting in the way of the door.
In a perfect word, this closet would be slightly deeper so that I could fit my vacuum in front of the shelves, but oh well. In a perfect world I might not have doors at all on the closet and it would be filled with beautiful coats and shoes I wanted to display! HAHA! Except that cannot happen since missing from these pictures are the strollers and gym bags also sitting on top of the shelves. And our ‘guest closet’ by the front door is filled with gym mats and fighting equipment. So,alas,the vacuum lives in the dining room, right next to the built-in hutch. It is just as well. Getting the vacuum out of the closet every day would be a pain. Life with an active family is just not pretty in a home decor sense.
You can also see a glimpse of the chalkboard we made as part of the catch all room makeover.
Now that we actually have the ability to keep the heaps of stuff off of the floor, maybe I can start more seriously tackling the room at large. If anyone has any tips for dealing with mail, bills, and homework clutter, I am all ears.