The master closet plan

Hello my friends! How was your weekend? My girlfriends and I went away for a very quick trip to Chicago – we were there and back in about 36 hours but did a TON. Mostly shopping, eating and drinking margaritas but we did a little sight seeing too. :) I hadn’t been to the Sears Tower (I know, Willis Tower, whatever) since I was a kid so I wanted to check it out.

We all almost puked when we stepped out on the skydeck. I had to pull a couple of the girls out there with me. But we got a little more comfortable with time and then even sat down:

Willis Tower skydeck

Sitting was horrible because you knew you couldn’t leap for safety if something happened. You know, just in case? Whoa.

It was quiet up there since visibility wasn’t great (looking out – it was fine going down as you’ll see) so we goofed off for a good hour and took some interesting shots. I thought sitting was bad, laying down was even worse:

Oh my goodness, we had a BLAST. It was such a fun weekend. These are three of my closest friends in the world, love them:

Alright, onto my next big project. The closet (dun dun DUUUUUUN). It is about TIME. You know how someone says, Oh my house is such a mess, or my closet or my room, whatever? And you see it and you’re like, THIS is a mess? You don’t know mess. Yeah, so when I say our closet was a disaster I truly, deeply mean disaster. I will not be sharing before before pictures if that tells you anything.

It is the only spot in our house that is always out of control. I feel like I’ve gotten a decent hold on the rest of the house -- the closet is another story. It was OK the first year or two we lived here but something happened along the way and I don’t know what it was. I know the biggest issue is we’ve never had a good system in there. Our closet is HUGE so we don’t keep our clothes in a dresser in our room, just in there. But we have a cheap Goodwill dresser that’s falling apart and wire shelving – that’s pretty much it to hold folded items and it doesn’t work. AND we’ve been really bad about purging clothes so that didn’t help at all. Too many clothes and no organization = a disaster.

SO…I’ve been trying to figure out a new system that wouldn’t cost thousands of dollars. I’m determined to make the back wall way more functional for us. (Again, it’s not quite ready for decent before shots just yet so bear with me.) I would love a closet system and honestly we could probably do it if we planned for it, but I really want to do this myself and try to do it spending a little less money.

The other night I was laying in bed and an idea came to me – finally. And you’ll never guess what it involves. Or maybe you will. :)

Kitchen cabinets of course!:

unfinsihed base cabinets

I know, I have a problem, I own it. I use them a lot. But I kept thinking about what I wanted and I don’t want open storage like many closet systems have. (The drawers cost so much more.) I want to be able to throw things in a drawer or cabinet and shut. the. door.

So the cabinet idea may just work. I measured the width of the room and six pieces will fit perfectly. I’m also including a couple of these:

unfinished pantry cabinet

It’s a pantry but it will be awesome (closed) shelving for shoes and clothes.

I don’t have Photoshop but I threw something together in my photo program to show you my vision:

Closet design

Originally I wanted the taller cabinets against the walls, but we have an access panel we need to be able to get to, so instead I moved them in a bit. It actually worked because my plan is to put some exposed shelving between those and the wall. I figure I can use it for purses or shoes or whatever.

The middle section will be a vanity-type area. I doubt I’ll put a chair there because of the drawers, but we’ll see. At the very least I plan to hang a mirror and display my jewelry and perfume, stuff like that.

I cannot even tell you how excited I am do this! Now that I have a vision I’m chomping at the bit to get going, hence all the laundry and purging. I’m about halfway done with that part and then I’ll get moving on installing these.

So do you see my vision? Am I the crazy cabinet lady? Maybe. I WANT ALL THE CABINETS. But I think this will work and it will be a fraction of the cost of a closet system.

It won’t be this:

Ballard Designs Sarah closet

(Ballard Designs)

But it will be great, I think so anyway.

Now, I’m off to fold more clothes. :) Do you have a closet system that works? Do tell.