Hello everyone! Hope you are all finding yourself well. During the summer I had mentioned that because we were staying home a lot more we had done a couple renovations around the house, one being our closet. So my boyfriend and I decided to rip our closet apart and start from scratch. We started with some ideas and then decided to sketch it out on paper. I had certain "demands" haha, or more like certain things I wanted to add to the closet that I thought would make use of absolutely every single space. That was one thing that I had in mind. I wanted to have a closet with no wasted space. I find that the typical closets that are found in homes are a standard rod to hang your clothes and a shelf on top to put some things stacked and piled on top of each other. We wanted to create and build a closet that wasn't only pleasing to the eye but also functional for our lifestyle. Mind you, this is the first time that we take a project on like this so we came across a couple issues but nothing that couldn't be resolved.
Before After
Andres and I first spoke about ideas and wrote them on paper. He later did a rough sketch where we then discussed the measurements for each section of the closet, along with certain designs that we could go ahead with. I believe he did 4 sketches until we settled with one.
This is the first sketch that he did (for the life of me I can't find the sketch with the measurements, but you guys get the idea)
We were asked before "why don't you just buy a closet from Ikea?" Well although Ikea sells gorgeous closets it just wasn't practical for us, one being we were on a budget (Ikea closets are pricey- and for the size we wanted, it was going to be expensive). Another thing was that Covid had just started to get serious and we were limited in going out. So what better way to entertain ourselves then taking on a project like this and doing it ourselves.
I really didn't like this closet. This closet had so much potential and by looking at it you can tell that there was so much wasted space.
We later headed to HomeDepot to check out what type of wood we could go out with. We ended up going with knotty pine, which we were told that it would be easier to stain or paint if we wanted to and also it was cheaper than the others. Funny enough we noticed that we weren't the only one that were doing renovations. Since we were in the wood aisle a couple people tried to make small talk with us and asked us if we were also working on building a closet. Most people took wood that was ready to just put up and install. We did think about going that route but like I mentioned we were on a budget.
We brought everything into the backyard which was out work area. We first finely sanded our pieces of wood and then covered any imperfections with puddy and then later went on with sanding it again once it was dry. Our neighbours actually suggested to later spray the wood lightly with water and then go and sanding it one last time. We thought that this process was going to be quick, painless and easy. Boy were we wrong LOL. It wasn't quick, it actually took us a week because there were so many pieces of wood that had to be done. Most days we worked on it until it got dark in order to hurry up the process. Painless, ah no. I actually got a couple blisters on the way. Once we got the hang of it, it became easier and we worked on it quicker. I will add that when it came to painting, the paint went on smoothly and it dried up very quickly.
This is proof we worked until late, we were so exhausted that day- by the looks on his face he hated me at this point lol.
I did the cuts myself so it would fit perfectly into the dust panels (proud moment).
Measuring out where everything would sit perfectly.
First one up! (as soon as the first separation was put up I was so happy my vision was coming to life, and see how all of our hard work was paying off- happy tears were shed).
Last finishing touches!
We were doubting if we should paint them and go for an all white closet or just staining them and leaving them 'oh natural'. We later decided to paint them since I insisted on the white closet (oops lol) but the good thing is that it turned out really nice and we love it. We ended up doing two coats on each side on every piece of wood which gave it a nice finish to it. Installing did take a couple of days since we had to drill parts of the closet together before we actually could put it up.
Although it was a lot of work and many times I just wanted to hide in the bathroom and cry because it felt like we were hitting a couple dead ends sometimes. I'm in love with the finish project and grateful that my boyfriend had patience with me.
Along with building our closet we also decided to remove the carpet and install wood floors. For the record the carpet was an ugly pink carpet that wasn't cute and couldn't be saved even if I tried lol. We also decided to refresh the paint on our walls so we also did that.
Bed and bedding is all from Crate & Barrel.
Our room isn't completely done when it comes to decor. We still need to buy a rug (preferably a vintage one), new nightstands, lamps and a couple art pieces, but because of covid we still aren't able to go shopping. Once we can, hopefully we can find the right pieces we are looking for. I hope you guys enjoyed this blog post and hopefully you guys get inspired to work on a project yourselves. Although it was hard I enjoyed the challenge and the outcome was so worth it.
xoxo,
