My Cleaning Closet Overhaul!

While it is fun in some ways to live in a house where we can stretch out a little more and the kids and the dog can run around more freely, I'm learning a bigger house sort of just means there's more to clean! :) I use a cleaning schedule that really helps, but I was feeling like I needed a central command station.

So over the holidays, I joined forces with seven other bloggers also anxious to get their homes organized in 2014. I decided to have a little fun with the closet under the stairs, formerly known as the Harry Potter closet/closet of no return/most embarrassing place for guests to mistake as a coat closet.

Shield your eyes!!

Christmas decor. Amazon boxes. A wadded up air mattress? Random cleaning supplies. Lists. Receipts. Leftover flooring nails. Home Depot bags that may or may not actually have useful things inside. This is my life, people. Help!

The first step was a good clean-out. Then I headed right over to my fabric stash and pulled out what I had left of this pretty Quadrille fabric. I found it at a fabric warehouse a few years ago and had used it for a custom shower curtain (it's an acetate fabric).

The colors are so pretty! Orange and turquoise and olive with just a bit of plum.

I wanted a bright blue paint color for the walls and went with Sky Watch from The Home Decorators Collection line at Home Depot.

I also picked up just a few (!!!) extra things for the project while I was there.

I painted the walls in a flat enamel.

Then I added flat trim to the shelf fronts, to make them look thicker. I also added baseboards to the closet. It's amazing how much more finished the room looked after adding baseboards!

Then I painted the shelves the same color as the walls, but in a high gloss.

I left the back wall white though. No need to waste paint there.

Using the same technique I used to upholster a wall in our old loft here, I roughly cut the Quadrille fabric to size and then I stapled and stretched it, and stapled it again on the back wall.

After all the staples were in, I trimmed off the excess fabric.

I tried to be mindful of the pattern the whole time, so that everything would line up in the right way.

Then I covered the staples using cotton twill tape from Joanns and some copper upholstery nails.

To dress up the fronts of the now-thicker shelves, and to help keep things organized, I picked up a package of these metal label holders in the scrapbooking section of my local craft store. I spray painted them gold to get a brass look.

I used black carpet tacks to hang the label-holders on the shelves.

It's really easy to keep everything where it should be with the labels on the shelves.

There used to be some plastic hooks on the wall to the left here, but I took those down in favor of this mop-and-broom-clamp-holder-thing (that's the official name).

I keep our broom and dustpan here and my new Swiffer SteamBoost mop, which I love for our bathroom and kitchen floors especially. I seriously use it every day. We put in winter grass this year, and it's been nothing but mud all over my floors for months. I love Linus like a son, but man, that dog tracks mud in all day long. It's a good thing he's so cute and sweet. :)

I also bought one of these screw-in plastic-dipped hooks from Home Depot and I installed it right into my shelving to help keep my vacuum's hose up off the floor. Works like a charm!

It is so fun to have a pretty little space to keep all my cleaning and paper products now.

Now when people accidentally open this door to hang up their coats, I'm like, oh that? That's just my cleaning closet. NBD. #boombaby #organized4lyf

For more organizing and spring cleaning tips head on over to FinditatHomeDepot.com, where seven fab bloggers are sharing their great cleaning and organizing projects.

This post was brought to you by The Home Depot and P&G. Start Clean in '14!

My First Domino Article!

I'm packing up to head back home from NYC, but first wanted to share with you a link to my article for Domino!

I added three Pax units to our bedroom to better store our shoes and folded clothes. My favorite part is the little vanity area in the center unit.

I have a few DIY project posts coming up from the behind the scenes. Can't wait to share this week!

Wall Colors and Wardrobes

Greetings from my bed! I have that weird allergies-turned-cold-turned-sinus-infection situation that seems to be going around. I feel well enough to get up and try to accomplish something in the morning and usually an hour or two in, I'm totally wasted and I crawl back into bed a broken woman. It's killing me to waste so much time (it's been days now!).

Today I was laying here in bed (which is a really special set up - a mattress on the ground!) and staring at the wall color. I decided Knoxville Gray would be better in the master than on the built-in bookshelves. Last night I got about half the room painted before I started to feel bad again.

You can see in the photo that we picked up some IKEA Pax units recently. Three 40" wide units for the bedroom wall that is shared with the closet. Michael and I will use the storage units for shoes and for some folded clothes.

We bought white units, but I think I'm going to spray them Knoxville Gray tomorrow or Friday. I love painting something the same color of the walls.

I want to add some special hardware, just like Emily added (here).

Emily Henderson

Or Jen from Made By Girl.

Made By Girl

Tommy Smythe added vintage brass knobs to his built-in Pax units. I love how the black paint looks here. So lovely.

Style at Home

I want to create a similar vanity situation on the inside of one of the units too (for my jewelry mostly).

Style at Home

And something like this is of course so stunning! I love the Venetian mirror and the details on the trimwork. 

Fresh Home

What have you done to spruce up your Pax units? We bought the same doors that Jen from Made by Girl has above and I'm thinking about adding mirror to the insets. I think it could be pretty with the dark gray paint color.