Musical Closets: verse 2

As I mentioned last week, we're in the process of turning our coat closet into a mini-mud room.  And, in the process of doing that, a game of musical closets began.  I showed you how I turned our unused office/craft room closet into a fab new storage area for our coats.

And, now I'm going to show you how our medicine closet got a facelift.  This little closet is in the hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedrooms.  It's a small closet with a big job.  It's where we keep all of our medicine, first aid supplies, and extra toiletries, and it's also where we keep our vacuum.  A while back I tried to get some organization going in there by purchasing some plastic bins, and I even labeled them with my mom's label maker.  But, let's be honest:  some of the bins were too small for what they were supposed to be holding, there weren't enough containers, and the closet, overall, left a lot to be desired.

And then there was the issue of the shelves.  They are nice, wooden shelves, but sometime back in the 70s or 80s, the boards had been covered with some awful contact paper.  It had definitely seen better days, and it was not the look I was going for.

So, I emptied the closet, peeled the paper off the shelves and got to working on giving myself a clean slate.  The closet got 2 coats of white paint in wipe-able semigloss, and the shelves did, too.  I knew from the beginning I wanted the closet to have a little surprise when you opened the door, so I decided to give it stripes.  I've never painted stripes on the wall before, but it turned out to be super easy.  I decided where I wanted my stripes, measured, and used a level to draw lines for where my tape would go.  Once I got the tape up, I made sure to go over it several times to make sure it was pressed into the wall as well as possible to- hopefully- prevent paint from bleeding underneath.

 

That was a piece of cake, and in no time the closet was ready for its stripes.  I rolled the stripes on with a small 4" foam roller, and they required only one coat (yay!).  I am a bad blogger, so I don't have a picture of this step.  I also painted the shelves in the same gray color, but they took 2 coats of paint on each side.  That is what made this project drag out over a week.  Each coat took only 5 minutes to roll on, so it wasn't time intensive, there was just lots of drying time in between.

Now for the fun part!  I decided to line the tops of the shelves with some colorful wrapping paper that I picked up at Target.  I traced the shelves onto the paper and cut the paper small leaving about 1/2" on all sides.  Then, I used spray adhesive to affix the paper to the shelves.

 And, here they are in the freshly striped closet.

 How fun and unexpected! 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I took the time to go through all of our medicine, toiletries, etc.  I found a bunch of expired stuff that got pitched, and I came up with an improved organization system for what was left.  Then, I got to put back all of my green plastic bins as well as some new, larger baskets that I also picked up at Target.

 Every container is labeled using a sharpie and white printer paper that I "laminated" using packing tape.  I attached each label with ribbon that I had already.

 

And, the result is fun and functional.  It's clean and fresh and totally useable.

 

Just yesterday, I instructed Colin to retrieve something from the "first aid" bin in the closet.  Easy peasy.  One point for well organized closets.

 I even picked up a command hook (my first!) for our beach bag.  Just getting things up off the floor does wonders for helping a space look and feel organized.

 

So, there you go.  And, I welcome any of you who I know in real life to keep me accountable.  Next time you're over, go ahead!  Open that closet and see if it's still tidy and well organized.  :)

xo,

Emily

** linking to the girls at