Master Closet
Okay, so 29 weeks ago, I created a highlight on Instagram called “The Closet”. I showed you all my secret closet messiness and vowed to rectify it with a super cute and refreshed closet! Well, life happens, and we started going hard on the kitchen renovation (which we did finish!) and I never got back around to the closet! I probably got one message a week that was like “So, how about that closet?!” Well 2020 hit and the kitchen has been finished for a few months and I was looking for something to get into, so I finally decided to tackle the closet! I am not a naturally clean or organized person. It’s something that I have to work really hard at and it’s not easy! One of my worst qualities is my inability to keep up on the damn laundry! I’m the type of person who will let it build and build and then I’ll go out and buy new underwear, and let it build some more until I’m so overwhelmed that I cry and end up doing laundry for days until it’s all done and I feel really good until the cycle starts all over again a week later. I’m also the type of person who has zero motivation to keep things clean or tidy unless they are aesthetically pleasing, so I knew what needed to be done! Here she is!!!!
We are super lucky and we have a giant master closet that was actually part of a large addition built onto the home before we moved in! The closet was built with wire shelving. The concept was great and I was going to try and make it work, but I just couldn’t get on board!! I have a lotttttt of clothes and so I wanted to keep the closet pretty simple but super functional and also still cute! I decided to get rid of the wire shelving and go for something just as convenient but a little “prettier!” My first step was to rip out all the wire shelving. Once it was all uninstalled, I started to prep the wall for paint! The walls were pretty damaged from the wire shelving and there were a ton of holes so spackling and wall repair took a whole day! once the walls were all prepped and masked I got to painting! Again, I knew I wanted to go simple, so I was choosing between black or white walls! I decided to go black and I’m so happy that I did! I went to home depot and got a gallon of Limousine Leather in flat Marquee for about $50! I usually always do marquee just because its such a good quality of paint!
Once the painting was all done, we needed to decide on a closet system. I had ripped the wire shelving down, but didn’t really have a game plan. I had a couple pins saved online and had a basic idea of what I needed so we went out shopping! I have a lot of shoes and knew i needed good shoe storage, so we ended up grabbing two tall white bookshelves from target for $35 a piece! Then we went to Home Depot and got some white adjustable closet rods! I needed 3 of them and found them for $11 each! I wanted a “closet system” on each side of the closet, so we just put together our own! I put a book shelf on each side and then attached my rods to the shelves and opposing walls! On one side I did one long tall bar for longer sweaters and dresses, and on the other side I did two rods for blouses, tee’s and tanks! All in all, the closet system we put together cost about $105! Getting the closet system all set up was the first step so I could hang my clothes back up and try and get some of the mess cleaned up before we kept going!
Next step was to create some space for my shoes! I put a lot on the bookshelves, but I still had a ton of shoes without a home, so I decided to store/display them on some curtain rods! I bought 5 simple and cheap white rods at $8.67 a piece on amazon, so about $45 total! They were really easy to install and the perfect way to display my heals but also keep things super organized!
I have been needing a floor length mirror basically since we moved in, and was on the hunt for one for my closet! I didn’t want to buy new because they are so expensive, so I had been checking secondhand apps daily! I got super lucky and ended up scoring A PAIR of arched floor length mirrors on FB market for $50 total! I leaned them on the wall on either side of the window and was dead over the idea of having TWO!
I also was looking for a cute little vintage dresser! Up until now, I had been storing all my delicates, swim and lounge-wear in some of those $5 plastic drawer bins. That had been fine in the past, but I was looking for something a little nicer! This dresser has a dramatic story! I fell in love with it the second I saw it and the dimensions were perfect but there were a list of people in line for it. I never gave up though and bothered this poor man multiple times a day and 5 days later she was mine for $100! Perfect for all my lounge-wear and underwear and also the cutest little vintage piece you ever did see! I snagged the mirror at the thrift for $5!!
Everything else in the room just fell together! I had the vintage Milo Baughman parsons benches in storage downstairs and almost bought a bench on FB market for this spot until I remembered I had these! The columns I had thrifted 2 months ago and had no idea what I was going to do with them, until I found this pair of lamps at the antique store for $45 and imagined them on these columns in my closet RIGHT AWAY! I actually only bought one of the lamps initially and then couldn’t stop thinking about them and went back and bought the other! I bought the curtain rod at home depot for $30 and splurged a bit on the crushed velvet curtains at $70 for the pair on amazon. The leopard rug I’ve had for some time from overstock.com and it’s been moving around the house, but found its forever home in the closet!
I basically had this room all decked out but was waiting for our final piece, molding! I was super excited for the black paint, mainly because I wanted to contrast it with some crisp white molding! We bought legit the cheapest white molding we could at Lowes at $4 a piece and ended up spending about $50 total. I wanted to give it a little Parisian pop, so I bought some hand-carved wooden applique decals on amazon! they came in a wood finish and I just painted them white! I actually ended up buying to many, but I spent $60 on those, and we both think they really “made” the molding! And that’s it!
We literally finished hanging molding last night, I shot and edited today and am writing the blog post tonight! From start to finish it took about 2.5 weeks! I had told you guys that I was going to do this project 100% on my own! As a blogger, when I’m working on a project, I reach out to different brands to try and partner or vice versa! It was also really refreshing to do a project without deadlines or deliverables or emails and just doing things at my pace on my terms! I really wanted to show you though that anyone can do these little projects and you don’t have to spend a ton of money! I spent about $525 over the course of a month and I’ll go ahead and add an additional $50 on little things like extra masking tape or whatever! This is the end result though and worth every damn penny! Just gonna say that my laundry game has been crazy! I’ve been committing to a load every other day and putting it away right away and it has made the biggest difference in my quality of life! Nate is shocked. We’ve been married for almost 9 years and I’ve always been terrible at it! God knows I cant let my dreamy closet get messy, though! Here’s to a clean closet, clean clothes and all the cute outfits!