*Lyrics from Five Years by David Bowie. I already used this song for the other master closet renovation, but thought that since this closet is really an extension of that one, well, it fit to use it twice. Plus, I mean, it’s Bowie. 

AFTER: I shot this looking into a full-length mirror we hung (which is why the bathroom is on the right and not the left). The stencil is in metallic silver (like I used in the family bath for the stripes).

Ok, so, closets. Who knew they were so important? Obviously having recently finished the last touches on our master closet renovation we’ve been eager to tidy our bedroom into a livable state. Of course then we took a mini-break to NYC and have had travel bags and suitcases strewn about the room looking for a home (previously stored in either the basement or the white room closet which is now our second master closet – confused? me, too). So it was time to finally tackle the other closet in the master bedroom.

The original (and formerly only) closet in the room is between the master bath (formerly the maid’s bath) and is tiny. And not really big. Did I mention it’s on the smaller side? It’s an old house, and people in the 1920s didn’t seem to have much stuff, plus they were smaller (or so it would seem), and the room we’re calling the master was probably meant to be a kids’ room (that’s right, plural, as in all of the kids – hold it together modern folks – so likely boys AND girls shared ~gasp!~ the same space!) so their clothes were small anyway. But really I think it was because people used dressers and chests and armoires for their belongings.

So, Jeff and I embarked on an actual DIY project: no Dave, no Jonas, no anyone to help us. Okay, well, maybe their collective teachings helped us preemptively. But we did the work our own selves. We. Built. Shelves. Sadly, this is much easier than I’m making it sound, and, really, all we had to do was install some wooden rails to sit a board atop. But, still. We did it alone. (Note: I’m totally patting myself on the back right now.)

We’d been using the mini-closet (I like to think of it as a walk-through, rather than walk-in, closet) as hamper storage, sweater storage, and some hanging storage. But, since the other closet is now all done we were able to consolidate our hanging clothes into one place. But our sweaters needed a home. So did our laundry. And I needed somewhere to put my make-up and hair-beautifying supplies (we opted for a pedestal sink rather than a vanity in the master bathroom since the room was so small). So, shelves it was. We looked into a closet system, but most of them were for closets a bit bigger than ours (ours is 32″ wide, and most of the systems required 36″); plus, they were way pricey and didn’t really provide much in the way of laundry storage.

I’d seen (and was inspired by) many a DIY laundry solution on the interwebs that looked like this:

Inspired by this, and other, laundry solutions found on image searches we embarked on making our own riff on this clever solution.

So, I figured, why not make something like that? Treat the laundry basket like a drawer that you simply slide out and carry to the laundry room. Nice, right? We ended up using a combination of towel bars and wood to get to the correct width that would support the sides of our laundry baskets, and would also support shelves. And we spruced up the walls a bit with some stenciling like we did on the master bedroom walls (here) with leftover silver paint that we used for the family bath stripes (here). Basically, we turned a problem into solution (and it’s totally helping with keeping the room tidier, and making the master bedroom feel more luxurious).

Some pictures, perhaps too many, of our delightful project. We’re proud of this one, made extra special by our own ingenuity, resourcefulness and organization. Enjoy! xoxo