Closet Makeover

I've just had a closet makeover - literally.  Not the clothes in the closet, but the closet itself.

Before

My house was built in 1950.  It's actually really modern for a house built then - there are definite Frank Lloyd Wright influences in the pitch of the roof, the size and placement of the windows, and the open plan with a tiny cramped kitchen.

So no surprise the closet was a single 80" long rod (with very big, if somewhat inconvenient, storage above).  So last weekend I moved everything out, and just now, got convenient stuff installed.

Demo

First came the demo - I had to pull out the shelf and doors. In addition to pulling off the folding doors on the closet, and the sliding doors on the shelf, I took off the door to my bedroom because when it's open, it blocks the closet.  (A peculiar "modern" touch of my house is the trim around the interior doors is not woodwork, but one piece of molded metal. It has the hinge for the door melded in. so I can't switch which side the door opens on. It's a complete rectangle so to take it out completely requires ripping up the hardwood floor.  Either of those is beyond the scope of this quickie project.) Demo is fun, but hard work.  It took some hours with a hammer and saw, but was very satisfying.

Prep

On Sunday, we painted. We did such a nice job the closet installers came in, took one look, and called up the office to say they had time to fit in another job because this one would be so quick.

Ready

So now I have this great space, and I need to decide how to organize things, and what to put in there.  I've also bought a new small Ikea dresser, and pretty much the rest of the weekend will be spent going through all my clothes and deciding what to keep.

When I emptied the closet, I tossed it all into the guest room, and hung a few things in the closet there. I knew I already had a couple of things hanging there, things I hadn't decided to get rid of but knew I wasn't likely to wear.  It turns out it was a lot more than a couple of things. I went through some of it during the original emptying out, and filled one big box of things to give away.  But I don't want to hang up anything in my new closet I won't want to wear, and so this will be a slow process. It might also require a trip to The Container Store (I love The Container Store!) to get some good looking boxes to put things in.

Ready to fill

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to put doors on this closet, but I'm torn on the door to my room. I live alone, and normally sleep with it open. But I do have guests, so there is a need for privacy.  I'm contemplating a nice Roman blind that can be lowered down from inside the room.  I may also want sliding fabric panels to be able to hide the closet contents, but I'm less sure about that.

The best answer for a tiny house like mine is pocket doors, but the wall I'd want to pierce for the pocket door is load bearing. To put a sliding over-the-wall door would still involve complications - when open, a sliding door would cover the thermostat and two light switches. This is all fixable, but like changing my door jam it scales the project up from a few hours and a few hundred dollars into skilled renovation work.

This is stuff that is fun, and easy to think about when on the treadmill or otherwise engaged.

Off to shop at my funky local small businesses!