There's Hope

We absolutely love this little house that we call our home. And we have since day one. Well... I should explain... it truly was love at first sight, but after moving in, with every inch covered in boxes, we went through a bit of a hate period... happily, though, soon after we returned to our blissful state.

And while we were fortunate to largely like the house the way it was, we did set about to painting (almost every room) and making some aesthetic changes to suite our tastes. Virtually every time I walk through our house, I see opportunities for a DIY project (to Chris' dismay) or a way to better highlight pops of accessories without cluttering the space.

So with the list of things to do in our house continuously growing ("welcome to home-ownership" is an oft-heard line coming from my parents), cleaning up an already functioning (and thankfully invisible with the door was shut) hall closet wasn't considered urgent. At least until we took a good look at the shelves. Not only were they peeling but we realized that they weren't even really shelves at all but three thin (light pink!) pieces of wood held together by some overly bold and seriously dated contact paper.

Thankfully, you'd be hard-pressed to find a smaller project to tackle than a hall closet in a 1940s home. Within a day, I had emptied the closet (which also led to a needed purging* of stuff) and we were on our way. After measuring how large we'd want the shelves and a quick trip to Home Depot, we were back home sanding and priming. Every inch of the interior of the closet as well as the shelves needed this treatment (that makes it sound really fancy - which is obviously an over-exaggeration since this couldn't be more basic).

We used the same color for the walls and ceiling as our dining room (a bright celadon) but decided to use two simple coats of our trim paint (a general white) for the shelves, trim, and door. As everything was drying (we waited extra long for the shelves and "brackets" so nothing would stick), I went shopping (around our house and in the basement!) for some pleasing-to-the-eye and functional storage containers and Chris took the door off, sanded and painted it and soaked all of the hardware to remove years and coats of old paint.

The end-result? I'd say it's best described as stress-reducing... and that's huge for someone like me to admit. Everything we need is easily accessible, housed in organized storage containers. The shelves are sturdy and clean (see, I told you... stress-reducing!) and there's even room left-over that we will surely need. Best of all - the only thing we purchased for the whole project was a large piece of wood (to the tune of $20) for the shelves; we used primer and paint that we already had and all of those (admittedly, inconsistent) containers were found around the house and given new life.

And I can vouch for the fact that it still looks this way today, over 2 weeks after the make-over was completed. Ahh... just thinking about it brings a smile to this face.

Does it look like this... not by a long shot, but every (very little) bit helps, right? I've actually found myself opening up the closet door as I walk by every so often just to gaze at the well-organized, fresh and clean closet. It's the little things, right?

*Purged? Really? Then why the huge stack of mis-matched towels?! This little lady demands to be washed pretty often and those are ah-hem... hers.