Linen Closet For The Win!

My quick linen-closet makeover is pretty much done and I'm so happy.  Though it's a much larger space, it took half the time that the entry closet did.  Fortunately. 

Here are a few "before" photos to remind you what exactly we were workin' with:

Check out the holes in the walls in between the weird wooden slats of that weird wooden slat-thing on the left.  And please admire all the crap jammed in there too.

The bare light bulb really shows off the awesome condition of the walls in here, right?

I have nothing to say for myself.

So, as I mentioned in the last post, I'd planned to 1) repair, prime, and paint the walls and trim (you can't see the trim in any of these photos, but like all the other closets in the house, the back of the door and the door molding were painted a gross barf color); 2) install 5 stained wooden shelves with shelf paper; 3) find a small dresser with a few drawers to hold miscellaneous crap; 4) re-home linens into the closet and find other homes for stuff that doesn't belong in a linen closet; and 5) replace the bare bulb with a sconce.

I didn't accomplish anywhere near all of that, but as it happens, I didn't need to.

Here's a shot I took last night of the fresh, clean linen closet (don't mind the glaring light please):

So here's what I DID do:

1) First I demo'ed the old gross shelves and the strange wooden rack-type-thing.  Then I spent a full day filling holes in the walls and huge cracks in the corners. 

Then I primed (two coats--these walls were really thirsty and covered with epic stains), then painted the walls with Behr's Reflecting Pool.  It looks a little purpley in this shot, but it's actually a really pale blue-gray.  My camera is crap.

2) Instead of going with wooden shelves, which would have looked beautiful and been cheaper, we opted for these wire ones.  We chose them for a bunch of reasons: first, they're lightweight; second, they'll permit airflow (very important when you live in the perpetually damp Pacific Northwest);  third, they're adjustable; and fourth, they're really really ridiculously easy to install.  We just bought two 60" tracks and two eight-foot lengths of shelf, which we cut to size with our handy-dandy hacksaws (we have two, I don't know why).  

3) I haven't found the little dresser yet-- I looked all over the used furniture and antique joints in town, but I couldn't find anything worthy of my fresh clean new closet.  Still looking.

4) The linens are in the closet and I love it.  Also, a bunch of stuff has found new lodging in the tool closet or the master closet or the built-in in the bathroom.

5  Now that the walls are freshly painted and the back of the door isn't puke-colored, the bare lightbulb doesn't bother me.  Maybe I'll change it out someday when we're done with everything else.  In the meantime, please enjoy this side-by-side comparison of my closet before and after:

I still need to hang my gift-wrap organizer and my cleaning-supplies organizer and my broom-and-mop hanger (those'll go in the nook where the slat-things were) and I'll be on the lookout for the small dresser to hold my picture-hanging supplies, etc. 

But for now, yeah-- I'm happy.