Home Improvement

As I was staring down the barrel of summer, I wanted to knock out some projects before all my spare time was spoken for. At the top of the list was our closet. It's a decent closet, to be sure, but something about the layout made it difficult to truly organize. After watching one too many episodes of The Home Edit and realizing even celebrities have the same kind of closet system I do, I decided to rip the whole thing out. The first thing I did was paint it Benjamin Moore's Super White. 

Before: Our closet door is almost always open. I didn't like that the first thing you could see were my shoes. Even though they are neatly lined up on shelves, they still look cluttered at a glance. 

After: I shifted the clothing rods over a bit and where the shoes used to be there is now a mirror. It's much cleaner and happier looking! Someday I want to get that mirror hung on the wall- although it has a sticker that specifically states it is not meant to be hung on a wall (I'm such a rebel!)

Before: So much about this space just didn't make sense. My shoes were all over the closet on different shelves and I really wanted them all in one space. We never use the laundry basket because it makes more sense to put dirty laundry in the hamper by the washer and dryer. The back of the closet was mostly taken up by Brent's drawers but then a chunk of his side was just empty (you can see a bit of laundry basket peeking out by the door). It was fine, but it wasn't functioning well.

 After: The #1 thing I wanted was all shoes in one section- both mine and Brent's. I was so excited about this part of it, I installed the shelves before the paint was dry on the baseboards and put in the shoes. The shelves were a BIG to-do: they had to be ordered and then cut and only Lowe's carries this closet system and I'm pretty sure the lumber guys are happy I'm done with this project because I kept ordering more... but I'm so happy with how this turned out! It. Just. Makes. Sense. All my flats are together, all my wedges are together, all my pumps, heels and boots are on their own shelf with their own little family and grabbing what I want is a breeze. I told Brent this makes me not want to buy shoes because clearly I have enough- so perhaps this is his favorite part of the closet too- haha! It's fun to look at and I have to smile when I see something out of place because I know one of the girls has been playing in them. Brent's shoes look fantastic as well. All the hassle of revamping this closet was worth just this section alone. 

After: As I mentioned, my rods moved over a bit, giving each section just a bit more room for clothes. The shelf above our shoes has our temple bags and I love that they live there together- just waiting for us to take in a session! For now the girls scholastic/memory bins live above my clothes but one day those will move out when they do. For now it's nice to have them handy so we can add to them.

After: While I also did some reconfiguring on Brent's side of the closet, the biggest change was finally going through his clothes. He's not only lost weight, but he's kept it off for over a year and it was just time to say goodbye to all the clothes that don't fit anymore. That meant donating 2/3 of everything he owns. Even I was stunned. We are basically rebuilding his entire wardrobe because this is all that was left. We had even had to buy him a new suit because he looked like a cancer survivor in the two he had. I shifted the drawers to his side which he likes much better and now the shelving space is used for jeans, sweaters and the hats he never wears but won't toss. He reaches for casual clothes much more often than dressy so those got pride of place on top. It's so much more functional now!

Before: When we moved here, Liesel didn't have a dresser and I wasn't using these drawers so for far too long, her folded clothes went here. There were more shelves (I was eager to start taking things apart) but they always looked sad and cluttered. The hats and bags on the side of the wall added to the cluttered feeling and I just hated it. Not to mention the front of the drawers often fell off and constantly needed to be tacked back together. I was so happy to just tear this whole thing out! 

After: The oversize hooks and storage bench make this a much more inviting corner! Brent and I have had long conversations here- just hanging out in our closet. It's such a great space now- functional, pretty and organized. There was a lot of wall repair here after ripping everything out but once it was sanded and painted it looked like new!

Next up was mulching. Last year when we dug out the pit for the in-ground trampoline, we scattered the dirt wherever it seemed low in the existing beds. Well, the deeper we dug, the lighter the color of the dirt looked. The the beds were more even in fill, but really uneven in color. They hadn't been properly mulched in a while so we gave it a PhD- piled it high and deep. 

Before & After: I uncovered the fountain hoping that just seeing it again would somehow motivate me to figure out how to fix the darn thing. Plus it's really pretty. Oh and something about bushes covering up any tiny bit of window is offensive to me so I trimmed those halfway between the window and the ground. They looked pretty sparse there for a while! No worries, they grew in just fine. 

Another view of the fountain area:

Before & After: To left of the fire pit. The mulch really helped define the area. 

Before & After: To the right of the fire pit. 

After: A view of both the fountain and fire pit areas looking freshly mulched!

After: I think we were just working so hard I forgot to get a before of this area but it had a lot of different colored dirt from the trampoline pit and the mulch smoothed that right over. 

After: Another one I forgot to get the before pic but this one took a lot of mulch. Someday I'm going to do something spectacular with this section. It desperately wants heaps of flowers!

Back inside, I really wanted to paint the hallway before the girls were out from school. The beige color always looked sickly to me and I wanted a clean, crisp white. It may not seem like that big of a change, but believe me, it suddenly looked not just cleaner but somehow like a nicer home.

Before & After: Standing at the top of the stairs looking down the hallway. Turns out that angled wall is a huge wall! We'd hung our family tree there but when we realized how much space there really was, we decided to hang the printing sheets of the Book of Mormon meant for the office. I'd had it framed and waiting and well, it wanted to live here instead. The family tree was relocated just down the hall outside Ireland and Gita's room. I love how the black, white and natural wood colors came together. 

Before & After: Standing in Ireland and Gita's doorway looking back at the stairs. I had mixed feelings about that "You Are My Sunshine" canvas with the girls footprints. I think I want to like it, but I was really okay taking it down. For now that wall is blank and I have some ideas on what I want to put there in it's place... stay tuned on that one! The before was taken in the light of day and the after was taken at night and it still looks lighter and brighter!

Before & After: Laundry hamper nook by the stairs. Believe me, I have plans to paint the foyer the same white color and finally be completely rid of the beige. I think I'm going to have to call in the professionals on that one- it's a two story height and over stairs- but it's on my list!

After: Across from the washer and dryer. This was a little passion project in the middle of the big project. I've wanted a ruler for years but... well... I guess I'm picky. I wanted it to actually look like a ruler, not just a slab of wood, with both English and metric, and I wanted to continue that natural wood color, and I wanted to mark the girl's heights in their colors. Finally I cried "uncle" and just turned to Etsy where I found this one. My only complaint is I wish it were twice the width because the measurements can overlap a bit, but other than that I love it. I also turned to Etsy for a calligrapher to write, "Ah but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" In my mind this was going to go somewhere on the actual ruler but I'm okay with it in a frame right next to it. 

Oh man, I love this ruler but the girls LOVE this ruler! Putting the stickers on took a chunk of a day. I plopped it down in the office so I'd have Brent by my side to help me with measurements and hung it before they arrived home from school. They were so delighted and talked endlessly about who was tallest at what age and who might be tallest overall based on trends. It's really interesting because some have shot forward at different ages. This also brought to our attention Gita never got an 8 year physical! I totally blame the pandemic, and we scheduled one right away. Since her birthday is in August, it's a tough one to get because parents are trying to squeeze their kids in before school starts. 

I'm always sad to set aside projects so I can focus on the girls for the summer, but going into this summer I'm so very happy with these last few I accomplished! While the mulching is an annual thing, the hallway and master closet have bothered me ever since we moved in. Those spaces finally feel like they are ours. Home sweet home!