The Great Closet Remodel of 2011- Part 1.

Admittedly, I have an addiction to shopping. Shopping makes me happy and relaxes me when I am stressed out. I'm a smart shopper and I absolutely love finding deals on clothes and shoes. Unfortunately, my large closet was not designed well enough to handle my constant influx of material goods in a convenient way. What's a girl to do? Get rid of the extra shoes and clothes that do not fit comfortably in the current closet? No. Stop shopping? Definitely not.

So??

I decided to remodel my closet!! Initially, I felt like I needed a professional's opinion to get me where I needed to be in my closet. However, after getting a useless "professional" opinion from a very snotty, brainless "designer" at California Closets that would have left me with LESS storage, I had to take matters in my own hands. My husband and I mapped out a new design for my closet and planned to tackle the project ourselves!

My design on paper:



My closet before the demo:




After drawing up the design, the closet sat untouched for a month. With our traveling, Dustan's busy work schedule and all of our other incomplete, ongoing remodeling projects, we just didn't have the time to tackle another project without help. We decided to hire a family friend to build my shoe closet and hang the clothing racks.

To save time and money, my hubby and I did the closet demo ourselves. It took us two days to completely tear apart the closet and get it prepped for the remodel. It would have only taken one day, but with the Texas heat and high humidity, the texture didn't dry in the 30 minutes it promised...

My hubby helped my take the shelves and hanging units off the walls:



Everything off the wall, ready for joint compound:



I used joint compound to smooth out the surface around where the shelves use to be. The area under the shelves had never been painted, so there was a very uneven surface on the wall once the shelves were gone:



After the joint compound dried, I lightly sanded the area and used the orange peel texture in the spray can to try and match the wall's texture to the best of my ability. I've tried several different versions of the texture, but I still haven't been able to completely master the art of spot texturing. (Side note- I HATE textured walls. It's a cheap, dirty, 'cut corners' way of doing houses.) The spray went on blue & was supposed to turn white when dry, which the can predicted to be 30 minutes. It actually took all night for the texture to turn completely white. Thank you, Texas weather:



I bought a $5 "oops" gallon of Valspar paint at Lowe's. I figured I could use it somewhere in my house and my closet seemed like a perfect spot for what I thought was an excellent neutral color. Unfortunately, as I started to paint the color on my wall, I felt the wall start to "close in" on me. It was just too dark for a small space. Plus, Valspar paint is horrible to work with. I was dealing with paint boogers, uneven coverage and unstable drying times. I don't recommend Valspar paints.



All painted and ready to go:






Before & After- Part 1: