Dream Closet Brainstorming: HELP Me!

The long-term plan for our extra bedroom is to one day turn it into a master bathroom (with a huge shower, lots of counter space and two sinks) that leads to a walk-in closet. I’ve wanted a walk-in closet my ENTIRE life and have never had the opportunity to have one. Instead, I try to organize my regular sized closet as much as possible with my ‘on season’ clothes and my office closet holds my ‘off season’ stuff.

Over the years, we have used the extra bedroom as a playroom for Jack and now as an exercise room for me. And it is a pretty huge room – right now it holds an elliptical, 2 exercise bikes, 2 yoga mats fully stretched out and a bunch more random stuff. Oh, and the walls haven’t been updated since we moved in 9 years ago — it came with that wall color and the ugly border at the top of the walls.

I was recently thinking, maybe I should start working on my walk-in closet plans NOW, rather than doing it all at once. That way, I can start using it and also pay for one wall of a wardrobe before we build a bathroom, which is much less painful.

So, I’m thinking of starting with this wall:

There is about 8 feet of space (96 inches) without blocking the door or the window. I thought I could start looking for wardrobe organizers for that space and then build out when we get to the bigger project.

There are SO MANY options though and I could really use some feedback! Originally, I was thinking of having open closets but then I started thinking about having something with doors that could close.

Here are some of my inspiration photos:

Source: Ikea.com

This is one of the Pax wardrobe options from Ikea (you can find it here). It is 68” wide so I could certainly go wider than this one. It costs $465 and I like that it includes hanging area, shelves AND drawers. The downside is that this is out of stock at both of my nearby Ikea stores and they do not deliver to my zip code.

Source: Ikea.com

With that being said, there is a Pax Designer Tool on the Ikea website where you can build your own closet from Pax pieces. I made this version which is like the one I found, but with an extra hanging wardrobe bit on the end to make it 88 5/8 inches wide so it will fit better on my wall. This version is $550.

Then, I started looking at less expensive options and came across the KLEPPSTAD wardrobe (you can find it here). It has three doors, is 46 inches wide and costs $129.

Here it is with the doors closed:

Source: Ikea.com

And here it is with the doors open:

Source: Ikea.com

It is similar to the Pax, but doesn’t include the drawers. However, since it is 46” wide, I could get two of them for a total of 92” of space and it would cost $258, which is less than half of my custom-built Pax version.

When put together, it would look similar to this but a little wider:

Source: Ikea.com

I’m not sure if I want doors or not though. Once it’s an actual walk-in closet, it might be nicer to be able to see everything. Or would it be nice if things were tucked away? Or… maybe I could build it and just not put the doors on?

Of course, I didn’t just shop the Ikea website. I also looked at Home Depot, The Container Store and Amazon. The Container Store was WAY too expensive for a very similar look. I wasn’t finding anything I liked that was freestanding on the Home Depot website. But I did come across something interesting on Amazon.

Source: Amazon.com

This is the Tribesigns Freestanding Closet Organizer (you can find it here). It is 79 inches across for $330. It has four pockets of areas for hanging clothes, shelves and it even comes with the four cubby boxes.

And I’m torn. I feel like any of these would be a great option for clothing storage. However, because they are all great I’m not sure what would be the best option for me. I’m not sure if I want something without doors or something with doors?

I’m kind of overwhelmed with choices! Do you have strong feelings on doors vs no doors? Do you have a closet situation that you love or hate that you’d like to share? Help me!

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My Very Own Built In Bookcase

We’ve lived in our home for over 9 years now. And for 9 years I’ve stared at this random little indented wall in my den and thought that I should add a bookcase.

Over the years, the little indent has been the home to our Christmas tree and lately I’ve had some hanging lights in there. However, it never really looked quite right. So, I took everything down and cleared it out in anticipation of this project.

I had a plan, which I sketched out with some ideas. But once we got to Home Depot to see what kind of wood options we had, the whole plan was thrown out the door. The problem was that we needed long pieces of wood (the indent was 58.5 inches across), but also wide enough that I could use them as bookshelves.

After looking through the whole store, we found a winner in the closet department: Rubbermaid Chestnut Oak Laminated Wood Shelves in a 12” x 72” size for $15 each. I started by grabbing 5 of those, because I knew I wanted 5 shelves. But then, we also bought a bunch of the smaller sizes to use on our project as the shelf supports.

I’m not going to go through the whole process, because frankly it was an absolute blur of sawdust, sweating, more sawdust, and a nail gun. My dad is the master craftsman… while I was his humble assistant that ran all over the place, checked measurements, held boards while he cut them on his miter box, and pounded things into place with a rubber mallet.

My dad and I work really well together, in that I’m always open to trying things in different ways. And if something isn’t working, we can typically figure out another way to get to the same end-goal. With that being said, this project went MUCH quicker than I anticipated. My dad and I met at Home Depot at 9am and we were totally done and cleaned up at noon.

Pro Tip: buy EVERYTHING you think you might possibly need for your project the first time, as it’s much more fun to return unneeded stuff when you’re done then to have to run back out to the store in the middle of a project

On our morning trip, I spent $188 at Home Depot. When we were done, I went back to the store and returned $59 worth of stuff we ended not needing. So, the whole bookshelf project totaled $129.

Here is the slide show, but I also made an adorable little video with THE BEST song ever that you can view here (click through and turn on the sound):

Once we were done building and I had vacuumed up the sawdust. My dad left and it was time for me to do the fun part of ‘styling’ the shelves. I gathered up all the books that previously lived on my mantle, grabbed some more from my office and then went around the house stealing fun trinkets like photos, art projects and vases. I also took a quick trip to Homegoods to buy a couple more fake plants and two baskets.

And I LOVE the finished product!

Now the little den indent looks like it’s supposed to be there. The bookcase is custom, so it fits perfectly and with the light and the recliner, it makes a great little spot to snuggle up with a book.

All in all, I’m kind of annoyed that I THOUGHT about the project for 9 years… and it only took 3 hours.

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Losing My Mind & Gaining a Roof

Actual photo of the hole in Jack’s ceiling. I photoshopped on googly eyes for funsies.

You know how when you put a household task off, and put it off some more… it just goes away? Oh. Yeah, that doesn’t work for me either. Which is why when the ceiling in Jack’s room started leaking again, I figured I should probably do something about it. This wasn’t the first time it leaked, but it was the first time the leak morphed into a scary mouth not unlike the Harry Potter Sorting Hat.

While keeping a bath towel folded up on Jack’s dresser to catch raindrops seemed like a pretty great long-term plan, I decided to give my dad a call to see if he had a ‘roof guy’ and… of course he had a roof guy. So, just two days later, I poked my head out the door when my dog started barking his head off during my conference call to find a strange man climbing a ladder to my roof.

Not too long after, I decided to record a couple videos. Because I’m totally going to want to look back on this in a few years and laugh. Actually, it’s been a few days and I’m still laughing at the absurdity of it.

Click the little arrow on the right to enjoy all three videos:

So, there you go. Because obviously the perfect time to have a nice man rip off your old roof and replace it with a new one is when you are quarantining at home, working from home, and online schooling with your kid. Obviously.

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