Closet Plans and Layout

Being surrounded by all of your clothes as you drift off to a peaceful slumber really kicks up that urge to pare down, especially with the whole New Year thing.

It has been a couple of months since the closet’s contents took over the bedroom as we emptied the space to work on it. The carpet has already been ripped up, the terrible subfloor repaired, and new solid oak flooring put down. I’ve also removed the old sheet mirror from the sink nook and have made progress on those crumbling plaster corners. (They’re so much better! I scrapped the corner trowel and just did one side at a time. Far easier technique.) One spot needs a touch more work, but I’ll wait to mix up another batch of mud. There are new holes to come, hopefully as soon as this week, when new wires will be fished through.

One of the electricians was working on pulling a whip from the closet today, and she lowered the ceiling fixture to get a better look at the wiring in there. The house is 125 years old and it has been updated in bits and pieces over the years, so some areas are all right but the closet doesn’t look like one of them. Paper covered wires (plus a few modern wires spliced in, temporarily).

This, by the way, is the only type of wiring I’m ever confronted with when changing a light fixture. What a crazy day it will be when I go to put up a new light and the colored wires will match what the instructions tell me to do!

Once the rewiring is done in there, I can get in patch the new holes that are being made. Since the ceiling needs to be accessed anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to move the light over about six inches and center it. More patching will of course mean more sanding, which means more fine white dust everywhere, but then it will finally be time to wipe down the walls, prime, and paint. The walls and ceiling will both need it.

Here’s where we’re at.

• Empty the closet

• Remove wall-to-wall carpet

• Rip up old wood floor

• Repair the subfloor

• Install new hardwood flooring (to match the original)

• Remove sheet mirror

• Patch the plaster wall and corners behind the mirror

• Rewire (sconce, ceiling fixture, two switches, two outlets)

• Patch holes and damage from rewiring

• Paint prep (mostly cleaning all of the plaster dust everywhere)

• Prime (walls and ceiling)

• Finalize design plan

• Repair or replace garment rack (I fixed it!)

• Research and order new closet fittings

• Paint (walls and ceiling)

• Rewire antique lights or choose replacements

• Rehang lights

• New mirror above the sink

• Add storage near the sink

• Install new closet fittings

• Zhush it all up a little

• Put everything away (paring down in the process)

Is that everything? I think it is.

I worked with the 3D rendering I’d made again, playing around with the best way to organize our closet. There’s only one long, straight wall that makes sense for most of the clothes, but I thought that a mix of double hanging (what we had) and shelves would be more useful. And if we could get our floor length mirror in a different spot, it would free up space on the only other straight wall for additional storage. The Sarah Storage collection looked like a perfect fit so I reached out to Ballard Designs and they’ve sent a few pieces over. They’ve already arrived and I’m pretty excited about them, but they’re hanging out on the first floor until the closet is far enough along to bring everything up.

Such a funny layout, but it’s going to be so great when it’s all put back together again!