Playroom Progress: Closet Clean Up

I mentioned in a recent post that we have been juggling a bunch of projects right now, trying to work on them all at the same time. Let's all just laugh at that now, ok? Because everyone knows that working on multiple projects at once never happens quickly when you have a full work schedule and an energetic cutie pie running around. Haha! :)

Even though some of the projects are still sitting halfway finished, I'm happy to report that one of the biggest projects, the playroom closet, is complete! Woot!

Let me back up a minute and explain this redo. When we first moved in, we put all the toys in the playroom and extra toys in the playroom closet. Little One's clothes went in his closet, and random Christmas stuff and miscellaneous other things went in the guest room closet. But, over time we realized that Little One's closet was really under utilized while the playroom closet and guest room closets where packed and hard to organize. After trying different options, my genius hubby came up with the idea to put all of Little One's extra toys in his closet, then redistribute and reorganize the stuff from the guest room closet. Now why didn't I think of that?!

Here's a before of the playroom closet after I had emptied out most of the toys. Think it looks bad now? You should have seen it with all the toys precariously stacked in the bottom of the closet!

We emptied everything out into the guest room and sorted it all out, deciding where to put everything and getting rid of as much as we could. After everything was sorted, we looked at what needed to go in the playroom closet and made a shelving plan that would accomodate everything neatly.

As you can see, there is a lot of wasted space in the closet because of the lack of shelves. The only clothing items that needed to be stored in here were winter coats, so we really didn't need all this hanging space. We originally planned to add two shelves to the left side and another two to the top half of the right side, leaving space for my crafting cart. But, after realizing the coats needed to go in here, we decided to leave the entire right side open to accommodate the crafting cart on the bottom and the coats on the top.

Hubby measured the existing shelves and supporting boards, then we headed to Home Depot to grab plywood and boards in the same thickness as the existing shelves so everything would match. While he started working on the cutting and sanding, I gave the closet walls a fresh coat of paint. I just used the leftover paint from when we painted the playroom so everything would be cohesive and flow together well.

Here's Hubby's handiwork! I gave all the shelves and trim a coat of white paint, then Hubby caulked and we called it a day!

And here's the completed shelves! I may have forgotten to take pictures of every step of the building process. Just maybe. Blogger fail. But, I will take pictures of each step when Hubby builds the shelves in Little One's closet. I know you're sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation, right? Ha! ;)

I re-purposed the woven baskets from a bookshelf we had in our living room in our old home. I bought the crafting cart at Michael's with a 50% off coupon a couple years ago. I think I paid $25 for it. The plastic drawers are really old and re-purposed from my classroom. They are perfect for holding all of Little One's art supplies. 

I was super excited to find the large, plastic totes on clearance at Target for $2.99...and in the playroom colors! They're really deep and perfect for holding decorations and toys!

Looking to the right, you can see our games on the top shelf, coats, crafting cart, and wrapping supplies. I used an old box to hold the wrapping supplies. I still need to either make the box prettier or find a storage container to hold it all. I'm thinking of wrapping the box in twine like this for an inexpensive solution. 

On the left side, we have decorations in the two large totes on the top shelf, various cords and electronic accessories in the woven baskets, the printer and file box for miscellaneous papers, Little One's art supplies, and a few toys on the very bottom. I was super excited the printer was able to fit on the shelf, too! No more bulky printer on the desk! Hooray!

I have to admit, I usually go for practical above pretty. I'm really cheap and always try to reuse things that we have on hand...or just do without. But, I'm so thankful we invested in the shelving and the large totes to keep everything organized. And I'm really excited that the walls are blue! It's so fun to open up the closet and see a pop of color! I understand now why so many organizing bloggers make it such a point to make things pretty! It sure makes me want to keep it organized!

Linking up with Thrifty Decor Chick!