Master Suite Reno...Part 2

I’ve shown you what we did in the master bedroom, and now I’ll show our redone closet. When I’m done, I have a little blurb and a link about shopping your closet!

When I set out to have my dream closet, I was limited by space - it would be 7’ x 8’. So it was never gonna be a “guest room dedicated to my wardrobe” or anything. But it was plenty of space, complete with the armoire we built, to house all of our clothing. And that is a luxury for us - I used to have to completely redo the closet every season, pulling the new season’s clothing out of a large, ugly, primitive armoire, and an antique chest at the foot of our bed, and pulling the old season’s clothing out of the closet and then swapping them.

I read lots of articles about planning and building a closet. One tip was to actually measure your hanging items, by the linear inches to make sure you have enough space for what you own. I did that. Also, count your shoes and measure. I overdid that.

Below you see my three original rough drawings.

This is the original closet. The builder really outdid himself.

More goodness. I lived with this for 28 years. I’d like a medal please.

The first thing we did was gut the space where the bath and closet were and bump the bath into the closet and bump them both into the bedroom.

This is the original closet footprint from the bedroom door. The bath is to the left…

New closet doors — new framing and pocket doors. you can see the closet is coming into the room about 18”.

You can see below, they actually measured and drew it all out on the drywall for me, so I could see how is was working out. Things got tweaked, because my drawings were not “builder grade”. And in this instance, builder grade was WAY better than mine. (I forgot width of walls and stuff.)

We kept the laundry chute that they put in when we added a laundry room below that wall, in 2008. We worked it into the plan. It is awkward but I’m not getting rid of it.

We ended up with Benjamin Moore Linen White at 50%, just like the trim and ceiling in the bedroom. It was hard - the whites look completely different in the closet vs the bedroom, with the lights on and off, and even from wall to wall.

all painted - waiting on lights, hardware, rods and mirror

I used the same hardware that I used on the armoire, but in brass. Below you can see the rods are in, and the lights are up. I used a Visual Comfort light for the ceiling. This is my side for hanging items and folded stuff, and my shoes. Some of my shoes. I got new hangers and clear shoe boxes and woven bins from The Container Store for my things. The ladies knew me by name after 4 months of visits.

More shoes on the left, including some of Chip’s. The middle cabinet was ordered from Decora, the same company that made the armoire, and contains my jewelry, underwear, bras, socks, camis, tights, etc. I hope to put fabric covered bulletin boards on either side of the mirror, for outfit inspiration, etc. but who knows if that will ever get done.

This side is where Chip’s hanging things and shoes go. The rest of his stuff is in the armoire. The laundry chute is awkward but we work around it.

I just took these today, so you can see how it lives. Pretty well! Thanks again to Ridgeline Construction, and to Chip for letting me do what I wanted.

When I find a bedside chest for the room, these baskets will go away and chip’s shoes will come off the floor.

I have been wanting to get some help and to “shop my closet”. I would like someone to help me put together new looks from what I already own. Maybe this spring I will do it!

Speaking of “slow fashion” and using what you already have, Cindy Hattersley did a great blog post a week or two ago about this. She talks about slow fashion and how to wear a blazer 5 ways. You can find it here….