Storage in the closet!

HEY everybody! Man, I’ve been busy. I’ve been working on a master bedroom project and the master closet for the past week or so and it’s all coming together really well. My body is screaming uncle but I’m so excited about the progress. :)

I wanted to give you an update on the closet redo I’m working on! A few weeks ago I shared how I’m planning to rework the back wall in there that’s just begging for some storage and organization. Up till now we’ve had random dressers and a bunch of wire shelves and they just aren’t working.

So I came up with this plan I showed you:

Imagine that’s a fancy rendering, OK?

Those black rectangles are supposed to represent the new storage -- using kitchen cabinets of course!:

    

So getting these cabinets home and upstairs was quite a feat. First of all, did you know cabinets are crazy heavy? Yeah. I’m used to carrying around the uppers for projects and those are bad enough – the bottom ones are monsters.

My sis and I went to Home Depot last week to pick up all the cabs because I can rent a truck to get them home. They found three of the six that we needed but couldn’t find the others, so they offered to deliver them all together the next day. I paid for the delivery but they graciously offered 20 percent off the whole purchase for the delay, which I thought was awesome.

So the next day it’s all delivered and since my husband was out of town my sis came by again…God bless her. We carried each cabinet up the stairs and yes we are BEASTS. The tall pantry cabinets were a little rough. I swear they weighed 200 pounds each. We got the six of them up stairs and then I realized my mistake in measuring – I had two inches less than I thought I did. Two inches is a big deal when the cabinet is 18 inches wide and you only have 16 to work with. GAH.

So…we took the two middle drawer cabinets back down the stairs (cursing a little at this point) and I had to rethink my plan for the middle. I finally came up with something that may work even better:

I ended up with the two drawers on each side, the taller pantries and then in the middle I put a 30 inch upper cabinet. This one holds shoes. :)

The great thing is, this spot was always going to be a vanity-like space but a chair would have been awkward right there. (With the original cabinets coming forward so much.) Now I’ll put the counter there and there will be a great spot for a stool. :) I don’t know if I’ll really use it as a vanity often (and actually sit down), but it will be a good spot to put on socks and stuff like that.

I’m REALLY excited about the possibilities of all the storage! The taller cabinets are absolutely huge:

They go back two feet. Because it’s so deep I have a plan to install more shelves and the make roll out drawers eventually. When I’m done I think it’s going to be awesome storage. For now I just love that we’ll be able to put everything in there and shut. the. door.

I’m not a great cabinet installer but I did it all myself in one evening and it went pretty smoothly. It’s tricky to get them all level and flush and even but I got close on everything. You just have to make sure the cabinets are attached to each other and the back wall (in studs). These are really sturdy and aren’t going anywhere, which is most important to me.

As you can see by the photos the light is horrible in there. I installed one of those directional light things (three lights that you can point wherever you want) years back and it doesn't work. I knew we needed something that just shines everywhere. I found this at on clearance at Lowe’s the other day and fell in love:

It’s pretty tall so I’m crossing my fingers I can make it work in there. We may just have to duck to walk under it cause I love it so much.

So that’s the progress so far – it’s coming together pretty well! So much left to do and as you can see in the photo above we still need to go through a pile of the hubby’s clothes. :) But we’re already using all the cabinets and they are working great! YES!!