If You Build It They Will Come {or Hubby Building Out My Closet Shelves}

Hello Lovies!

It seems that we are being pretty productive lately, and it's nice!!

This past weekend, actually about three hours on Saturday afternoon, hubster built out closet shelves.

For a while I've waffled with the idea of selling our present home and building from ground up to have a home that would work best for our family. Our current home is a two story home with the master bedroom downstairs and four bedrooms located upstairs. When we had first looked at the home and decided to purchase it, my Cor was six months old and we had dreams and plans to fill all these rooms up with kiddos. I'll post one day about that when I want to delve into major emotional stuff, but that ain't today sisters, lol!

But Cor won't sleep upstairs by himself (no I'm not going to make him as I still go and have a sleepover at my momma and daddy's when Jeff is out of town and there ain't no shame in my game!). So we had made the formal living room into his downstairs bedroom, but then there wasn't any real room for a game room. So I told Jeff, we have to use the space to our advantage or sell and build. Don't get me wrong I LOVE my home, it's what I've always dreamed of having (well besides it not being old enough but that's another post), but the space was just all configured wrong for one story living which is what we were trying to do.

So anyways, we decided to stay put and change some of the rooms functions. Our upstairs has one room that is considerably bigger than the others, we decided to make that the master bedroom. Yes, you heard me right, I lost my mind and made it so that we have to walk up the stairs at least twice a day, and we got some steep stairs. The closet is a bit weird, there are two, one has a bifold door and the other a regular door. I had Jeff hang another rod in the bifold closet so that we each had one rod a piece (if you're counting this is the SECOND time I lost my mind going from a walk in closet to one {ONE} rod). He then graciously got tired of hearing my nagging voice built out my shelves in my regular closet door. I'm really lucky, he is such a jack of all trades guy, and he normally doesn't mind all my "Come on babe, it'll be really easy!" pleas.  So with out further ado:

Here's the before picture, it had one wire shelve across the top. We had already removed it for another closet redo in Buckaroo;s closet.

 

We figured out how high we want the bottom shelve and then placed the other shelves from there. We decided on 20" from the bottom for boots to fit, and then 16" from then on. I'm going to be using it with baskets, shoe boxes, purses and jewelry containers. We went from having a five drawer chest of drawers each to three drawers in a dresser. We did purge but I have a lot of tank tops that I wear under my other shirts for modesty, these will all be placed here. Jeff screwed back and side supports of 2 x 4's for each shelf.

 

Yes this is the top but it was the best angle for pictures. I always have Jeff add a shelve in every closet above what they have. I love how older and European homes have closet usage all the way to the ceiling, it's a great use of previously wasted space. This top shelf will be used for the keepsakes really, since they will seldom be brought down.

 



 

He then ripped the 1/2" plywood to 12" wide pieces, then cut them at 35" in length, and screwed them down. He said 1/2" plywood would be fine for strength since it was such a short span across. You can see the shelf and how high it is compared to the door jam.

 

Here is the finished product! Yes it needs paint but we didn't have any white paint and it needs bright white since there is not a light in the closet. Honestly though I will roll with it like this for a year (ok fine yes probably a couple years). I've been thinking of adding one of those LED click on lights. Have you used one? Is it worth the money?

 

So one more time:

BEFORE

AFTER

 

 

So tell me what you think? I'm about to gather my unused baskets and fill 'er up! I'm enjoying getting all these little projects finished that I've been wanting to do. But there is always a dozen more to complete, but that is half the fun right??

 

Post a link in the comments (no I still haven't figured out how to do a linky thing) of what you've been working on.

 

Much Luv,

Michelle