Storage is Important

Why for yarn of course! :) Of course ^-^

Okay and for clothes, and shoes and other clothing things :). 

Closet renovating is something else the family helped us with while they were out to VA this year!

The hallway closet, our bedroom closet and my sisters closet all got facelifts! ;) 

The original design of each closet was okay but I felt there was a lot of space not being used quite so efficiently. So with help from the parents, my sisters helping unload the closets and in some cases painting them (the hallway closet) we were able to get the closets tended to from start to finish in two days. Dad and I painted and prepped the boards/walls before and after the shelves went up. Initially we were looking at the wire closet aide's and in the end decided wood will last longer and look sharper (and cost half of what we'd have paid for the wire shelving). We got shelving that was 1 by 12 and then however long we had measured we'd need for each closet. Dad and I painted just the shelving white and left the rods natural wood as you'll see in the photos :).

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The hallway closet BEFORE:

...and...

AFTER:

We painted the inside of this closet  to match the rest of the hallway and large sitting room, making it the last area upstairs to be painted since we moved in. 

All other walls upstairs had been painted since we've moved in. :) 

The rod was placed higher than where the prior one was. 

My husband being 6' 4" and having long coats we made sure the closet would store our longest coats with ease :). Shelving was added on top of the rod brackets and around the left side of the closet. This created a nook for the folding chairs to rest on and some camping gear to be hid away yet still readily accessible. The bottom shelf allowed for more shoe storage *yes* which helped tidy the floor up a bit! I moved a shoe caddy from my closet to the hallway closet for storage of purses, hats and gloves. I also purchased a basket for other scarf storage you'll see in the far right photo.

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Here is our closet - I neglected to take an official "before" photo but if you can envision more clothes on the right side of the closet packed in tightly then you get the picture. If you can't picture it then imagine a closet where if you pull out a shirt, the hanger stays attached to the pole but is stuck outside the clothes because there's not enough room for it to swing back into the mix, think SARDINES... yeah. I don't miss that. ^-^ 

Spacing this closet was very important to me. I wanted my mister to be able to have his shirts hang and be high enough for him to see. A custom tailored closet for sure ;). Luckily the dimensions worked out quite nicely with both his tops and mine. The top shelf of the closet allows for the misters shoes or my shoes in a shoe box, his shoes also rest on the 2nd shelf along with a small basket that he call pull out to grab dress socks when needed. All the way to the right we left space to store long dresses and pants. We made a small change to how we store our jeans. Jeans, shorts, all pants :) are on hangers now. I had to brain storm about my shoe storage because once I hung up my clothing it hid the shoes! I found an under the bed shoe caddy that has done well so far. I love that I can see all my clothes now and its not such a fight to get an item out just to see it!

Dad did an awesome job making sure the rod brackets were flush with the wall in every closet where applicable. Prior to redoing our closet on either side I just hoped the clothes wouldn't push too far to the ends... or they'd fall off. So annoying. First world problems... I know ;) 

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Here again I didn't get the official "before" picture so imagine again clothes on the right side 

why did we always clear that side out first?? Curious... ;)) 

with clothes on white hangers that fit the space on the first photo.

 My sisters closet was modelled after ours only in this case we brought the top rod and shelf down further so there was more than just a shoe boxes' worth of storage. 

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Reorganizing the closets proved quite helpful in the yarn arena as well - the old shoe rack went into the white room/craft room and ow holds yarn in a way that you can shove skeins together (yes! :D) and still see the colors quite readily when you open the closet door. Granted this is *not* the only place I have yarn. 

But I wanted to show off this updated part! :D

Shoe rack used for yarn storage - for the win!

OH! Oh! Also - the mister got his long awaited garage closet area - an open closet? :) 

All the motorcycle gear came out of the hallway closet and found their rightful home here - yay! :D

Can I just say I love to organize? I thoroughly appreciate when everything has its own place. 

Though yes, I still have a few "junk" drawers :).