Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Girls' closet renovation


The girls bedroom closet - actually, their whole bedroom - is one of the areas in the house that took me a lot of separate renovations before I was satisfied with it. I spent a lot of time standing and staring at it, trying to figure out a way to reconfigure it to make it more useable for us. My hope was to make it so that we could fit most or all of their clothes into it and so get rid of at least one dresser in their room.

Our girls share a room - 2 beds, 2 dressers, and a bookshelf was too much furniture in there!

My first reworking of the space made it so that I could get one of the dressers into the closet. This worked ok, but they just didn't have enough useable hanging space this way.


More staring... more measuring... more internet searches for inspiration...

Then one day when Brad left town, I started tearing the closet apart. I have this habit of starting projects when he leaves town. His plane hadn't even landed yet and I had this closet emptied, the closet system (that the previous owners had installed) removed and the walls painted! 


I decided to use the "wood" from the closet system as much as possible in the new design. I cut and rearranged the pieces to fit and so I was able to do this closet renovation for FREE! Woot!

Here it is going back in.


Now they have space for all of their hanging clothes. Dresses on top, shirts and skirts on the bottom. In the bins, they have space for pajamas, socks, undies, tights, leotards, etc. Their pants, shorts, and leggings fit in a small 2 drawer bedside table next to the closet.


Now they have space for all of their clothes and we got BOTH dressers out of the room! Success! 


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Fall is my favorite!

It's officially fall! And even though we've had temperatures in the 80s here in Northern Virginia, we're trying to get into the fall spirt.

I LOVE FALL!

My youngest (4 year old) daughter and I worked on this project together to transform or summer wreath into a fall wreath. We actually use the same twig wreath from Michael's for Spring, Summer, and Fall - we just change out the flowers to match the season! Here are our spring and summer wreaths from this year:
Spring:


Summer:



And here's the fall wreath for this year - my daughter took the picture. It's interesting to see the world from her perspective. ;)


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Brag post of the Day on Ana White!

Ana White's website full of amazing plans is what inspired me to start building furniture. Posts about the projects I've done using her plans are coming soon, including a full description of this build, but for now, check this out!

The beds I made for the girls were featured on her website!

Mom Built, Kid approved!
Brag Post of the Day! Mom Built, Kid Approved! Complete with Hideout/Hangout area under corner storage tower! Great build by stacieb, from plans http://ana-white.com/2010/06/plans/corner-hutch-plans-twin-storage-beds and http://ana-white.com/2011/04/plans/hailey-storage-bed-twin


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Oh, hello...

Sometimes just a cute little touch can make a big difference...

This is the entrance to our house from the garage. In the winter, it's our family's main entrance.  After seeing it on Pinterest, I decided to paint "hello" on the door while Brad was at work one day. It made him smile when he came in and it makes me smile every time I see it.


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