Closet Case

I finally couldn't take it any longer.  We'd not truly unpacked our clothes well into June which made our pretty decently-sized master walk-in closet seem cramped and awkward.

It was just so much underutilized space. Not to mention it looked like squatters set it up.

When you walk into the master bedroom you can turn left to enter the bedroom proper or right to enter the closet/half bath-like set up.  There is no door on the closet and it is kind of spacious on one end, so it's kind of like a little dressing room.  At least that's the story I'm sticking with. We like the rustic, cottage-y rack that was up on the right-side wall, but it makes access to the shelves and that end of the double-rod set up difficult to see and get to.  Hopefully we'll reuse it somewhere later and hopefully we'll find something low-profile to hang our bathrobes on before bathrobe weather hits.

The former owners had a dresser in there in the same spot, in fact they or the original owner took out the shoe shelf on that wall seeming to accommodate one.  We liked that AND didn't really have room in the bedroom for both dressers.  Eric's is shorter so it went in the closet.  I raised the shelf and cut back the rod to make the area over the dresser less cramped and hopefully look less like it's just shoved in a closet.

The top shelves look pretty high and they are, but we're pretty tall and can reach the stuff with just a bit of stretching. I actually have a little step stool I built many years ago just for high closet shelves, but it's being used as an "entertainment center" for now. Most of the things up there are things we'd only rarely get at anyway.

Two rods are better than one in my book.  To accomplish this I raised the rod supports and shelf and bought an actual closet rod, where a handrail moulding had been.  Not all the hangers fit the handrail and none of them slid easily along it. In order to keep the top rod off the ceiling AND the bottom rod's contents from puddling on the shoes, I lowered the shoe rack and installed a second set of rod supports and a rod.  YES!

While painting, I had the epiphany that this antique clock of Eric's great-aunt would be perfect in the dressing room of our old-west whorehouse-style bedroom. I also replaced the dresser hardware with some I had in my stash, that I sanded and painted with Modern Masters' Brass to match the existing keyhole hardware.

Of course, while I had all our clothes on the guest bed and in boxes in the hallway and had the rods and shelves removed I painted over the shiny, peachy color with the same warm grey that is on the ceiling in the bedroom.  Most surfaces, including the shelves and shoe rack were painted.

As with quite a few things in this house, I think whoever built the shoe rack kind of winged it. It's tilted the opposite way and with the cleat for holding the heels on the opposite edge of what you'd expect.  However, it functions just great at its lower height, with plenty of room under it for more shoes.

That's not just the photo, the old fixture (left) was tilted for some reason; the ceiling may or may not be perfectly level, but it's not like that.

We don't have a real winner of a light fixture to replace the existing one, but the boob light we took out of the bedroom is better than this AND will give twice as much light.  I'll keep my eye out for something used that I can make cool with my magic paint skills.

For a couple of people who often look not completely unlike hobos, we sure seem to have a lot of clothes.

While I was organizing all our clothes, I went ahead and reorganized our dresser drawers.  I used that method you see all over pinterest where you do a sort of horizontal stack. So far it's really easy to maintain and makes it really easy to find everything in each drawer.  I also think I fit quite a bit more into the drawers this way.  YEY!

Next up: The strange half-bath.  Strange in that the neat vintage corner sink is essentially in the closet, but at least the toilet is in its own tiny water closet!  The sink's porcelain is shot and it takes a good while for hot water to reach that sink, so who knows how much more we'll use it even after this area is tidied up.  The W/C needs wallpaper stripped which is not a hot, summertime job, so that will wait until fall, at least.