All posts in Organization

Pre-Fab to Post-FAB! or: Trapped in the Closet Part II

by readmakedo on June 7, 2012 in Before and After, Decor, Design, Home, Organization with 4 Comments

Hello! Well, I’m back from Europe. The second half of our trip was great, though in unexpected ways. I got some sort of insane French Flu that lasted for 4 days straight–how is that great you ask? Well, I suppose for most people it wouldn’t be. But the company I kept during that time was the best I could have asked for, and it was nice to know I’m married to someone who will always take excellent care of me, even in a foreign country where we don’t speak the language, and apparently they don’t believe in Pepto-Bismol. Seriously, it’s apparently illegal.

I’ll share some more about our wedding and a few other stories from our trip next week, but in the meantime, here’s a little something we’ve been working on.

Remember this?

An extra bedroom in our house had been converted into a den off the dining room, and I decided it would be great to use as an office / studio. More importantly, that meant we had to find an elegant solution for how to utilize what once was closet space when this room functioned as a bedroom.

We figured the best way to go is to find a low-cost way to create a built-in look. Why low-cost? Because we’d like to keep it so if whoever buys this house in the future feels the need to convert this den back into a bedroom, it will be worth it. Also, because who wants to spend thousands on cabinets? Nobody.

There was an AWESOME reader-submitted makeover on Young House Love that featured a similar project, with some beautiful results.

So we added some pre-fab cabinets. Well now these pre-fab cabinets are POST-FAB, because we fancied them up quite a bit.

F-F-FANCY! How did it get so fancy?? Let me tell you!

For starters, the pre-fab shelves don’t hold much weight when they are this long. So we doubled them up, and glued them together with wood glue.

Next, we added some trim along the outside/front of the shelves, they hang down a bit from the top so there’s a little bit of a lip.

 

The best part of all, is the shelves are still completely adjustable, so even though these look like custom-built cabinets we can still move the shelves around as necessary.

Check out this detail shot, where you can see how smooth the trim looks.

SO SMOOTH! Like a James Ingram song.

Also, we added this cute little toe-kick on the bottom, to make things really looked finished. So classy!

We still need to match the floor-board color, since in the past it had been re-sanded but not sealed for some reason.

I can’t believe what a difference trimming out this cabinet made! Also, the room looks 10,000 times cleaner now that it’s painted. It’s exciting to have some built-in shelves again to display all my favorite things (like my gigantor Charley Harper illustration book!). I’m still considering painting the back of the built-in a fun bright color, like maybe a sunny yellow or lime green. What do you think?

Small Storage & Chalkboard Paint

by readmakedo on April 19, 2012 in Decor, Design, DIY, Home, Organization, Painting, Uncategorized with No comments

As part of my sneak peak last week, and as a follow up to what I’m going to do with all this leftover chalkboard paint, I came up with this cute and easy project.

I had these really adorable little tea tins that I’d received as a stocking stuffer in 2005….so a while ago. They were out on display in my first apartment, then everywhere else I moved they just seemed a little too loud. These poor, psychedelic tea tins eventually were pushed to the back of my pantry, never to be loved again.

Until I had an idea.

I am constantly needing small storage, for things like q-tips, bobby pins, thumbtacks, guitar picks. Sometimes I use Altoid containers and such, but nothing is more disappointing than thinking you’ve brought some Altoids with you and it’s a bunch of bobby-pins.

“Kate, can I have an Altoid?”

“….No.”

To prevent future embarrassment, here’s what I did.

1. I spray-painted the tins with a metal primer, and then again with a regular spray-paint (I’m sure the metal-primer would be enough, but the color was still coming through quite a bit).

2. After allowing the paint to thoroughly dry, I ran some painter’s tape around the bottom edge of the tea-tin. You could do any other pattern that you want, just cover one side, make a stripe, etc.

3. Then I painted a few layers on. I might suggest roughing up the tin a bit with some sandpaper, because this paint goes on really smooth. Or, even better, if you have chalkboard spray paint (does that exist??), use that instead.

4. Let it cure, add some chalk to it, and BOOM. Done!

Also check out this super cute dip-dying idea from the Kitchn.  It would be really easy to make a design like the one shown above through dip dyeing, rather than taping it off and painting everything on. I might even add a second color to the bottom white area, jazz these up a bit!

Any ideas for other small-storage solutions around the home?

Trapped in the Closet (Part 1)

by readmakedo on April 10, 2012 in Decor, Design, Home, Organization, Painting with 1 Comment

That’s right, my Trapped in the Closet dream post came way sooner than anyone could have hoped for.

*CUE THE MUSIC*

It’s 5 pm in the afternoon, and I’m arrivin’ home from work,

and I see in my office there’s some shelfin’ that wasn’t there at first,

I rub my eyes and I’m so excited I feel like I’m gonna yell,

and out of that closet pops my good friend Mister R. Kell!

Okay that R. Kelly part didn’t happen. Nevertheless, I was pretty floored that we were able to complete the shelves so quickly. My parents surprised Jason and I by installing the shelves as an early housewarming/wedding/we are the most generous parents on earth-gift. So let’s take a look at them, shall we?

I am pretty excited about these. There’s still a lot we want to do to them, but for now just having them up is exciting. Did I just use the word excited twice? I’m just so excited, if you can’t tell.

But now that they are up, what should I do with them? We’re trying to decide if we want to paint the back wall of the shelves something fun and cheery, like maybe a lime green or sunny yellow. Maybe something like this:

Source: flickr.com via Kate on Pinterest

 

Or, if we want to treat these cabinets like built-ins. I used to live in a gorgeous old apartment built in the 1920s that retained all of the original built-ins from the era. They were always so fun to display things in, I loved them so much I even took a picture (long before my blogging days).

While I don’t know how possible it is to turn these new shelves into anything like the old built-in, I want to keep my options open.

The third option would be to put closet doors on these, and turn them back into a closet. The main benefit to doing this is you could truly hide any sort of junk, and you could also trap R. Kelly in there when necessary.

I’m very excited to start organizing these shelves and really making them work for me. So far, the best thing about these is I managed to fit all of my office supplies on the shelves and there aren’t any lingering boxes in the living room (SCOUT’S HONOR!) ! While they aren’t all super pretty and organized yet, for now we can hide everything behind the screen, and keep it on the downlow.

"Skipper Approved!" - Skipper

Keep it on the Downlow: Hiding Unsightlyness

by readmakedo on April 5, 2012 in Decor, Home, Organization with 6 Comments

As much as I love the idea of real life Catalog Living, it just isn’t possible for me. I know that somewhere within these catalog houses there is a closet filled with old skii equipment, an attic stuffed with MVP trophies, a secret dungeon filled with tax returns from the 1970s onward (some of these catalog people are definitely wealthy enough to have dungeons), and what I lovingly call “The crap pile.”

The crap pile, or C.P. as we’ll politely call it, is where you put things that really you can’t put anywhere else, but you need to store them somewhere. So steel yourselves, I am going to show you my C.P.

Printers? Check. Box of crafting supplies? Check. Whitney Houston vinyl that I need nearby at all times so her spirit guides me? Check. RIP Whitney. I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you I cleaned up before I took these photos. Shame over the C.P. got the best of me.

A few months ago, I tried to dress it up by color coding the books, but there is only so much you can polish a C.P. (However, to see an awesome example of color coding books, check out this post on Remodelista).

The C.P. in this room really is a drag, because otherwise the room is pretty** pulled together, considering we haven’t been here long (except the paint swatch. No we’re not painting the room that color, it was a bad idea).

"All this stuff makes me sad, because none of it is dog toys." - Skipper

My C.P. resides in what was once the closet of the 4th bedroom of this house, which has since been converted into a den. Eventually we are planning on building some shelves and making this shelf area more of a built-in, but for now I need a quick fix to hold me over until that happens.

Originally, I considered getting some curtain panels and a tension rod, and hiding the rod behind the beam that separates the closet. I thought about getting these super adorable chevron curtains from Etsy (and eventually hanging them in the guest room…I’m sure there will be a long post about that room in the near future. SPOILER ALERT), but then I found this:

Okay, not exactly a steal, but we actually were planning on buying this awesome screen from World Market for the wedding to display the seating chart/escort cards on, and then we realized it would be great for hiding the C.P.

And thanks to the magic of the internet and a free shipping promotion, the screen arrived in no time.

It still looks like it is missing something though…what could it be….

PERFECT! Thanks Skipper! Now the room looks way better. Good boy.

So this was a pretty easy and quick fix, and I absolutely love this screen. It ties in nicely with the pseudo Morrocan-themed carpet in the room, and it is totally a piece you could keep for a while and then reupholster on the cheap (or even do it yourself!). Plus it’s great for hiding a C.P. Not like I have one. Nope, There’s nothing to see behind that screen now. Move along.

P.S. You can’t get through a blog post named “Keep it on the Downlow” without some R. Kelly.

P.P.S. I aspire one day to write a series of ongoing, gripping blog posts about closet organization and calling it: “Trapped in the Closet“. Thank you Kel.

** Fact: This room also has a ways to go. But thank God we have a blog to document it all on.