Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Bathroom Closet - Ugly to Organized


I'm in an organizing/cleaning frenzy right now and when it came to my ugly bathroom closet, I was taking no prisoners!
 I got lots of inspiration on Pinterest for solving some of the "issues" in MY closet.  But there was one issue unique to my closet and that was a weird, unfinished "laundry chute" in the floor.  Now there's still no "chute" but this idea came to me in the middle of the night. (Please tell me SOMEONE else out there has messy closets like this one??)

I got a piece of flat wood, a cupboard door, a knob and some hinges at the local ReStore for just a few dollars.  Using Liquid Nails, I glued the stripping to form a base/frame on the tile floor for the door.  My next "problem" was this odd, little, useless ledge on one side of the closet.  I decided to add a shelf piece to it to make it useful for more storage.
There was a bunch of wasted space at the top of this closet so I added a fourth shelf to store blankets, pillows, etc.
I saw this cute idea for dividing a shelf using a corbel which I bought, painted and attached to the towel shelf.
The hanging shelves are great for wash cloths and hand towels.  Everything got a nice label and I even treated myself to new towels.  My whole bathroom is going to get a makeover using this deep plum, gray and pale blue color scheme.  My final "problem" was a place to keep my hair dryer, flat iron, etc.
Lots of 'problems' solved and now I smile every time I have to throw dirty laundry down to the laundry room.



 

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Ugly Bi-Fold Door Fix

Unfortunately every bedroom in our house has these cheap, hollow-core, bi-fold doors.  While continuing the process of making over my girls' bedroom into a "Beachy" guest room, I had totally ignored these doors.  Then my husband said to me, "Hey, you should do that 'painty, sanding thing' on them and make them look old."  I think he knows my style now!  Here's what they looked like before:
 I didn't even bother to remove the hinges.  I just sprayed them first with a flat, white primer and then painted everything with Pure White Chalk Paint.
 Normally I do two coats but for these, I wanted a particularly weathered, worn look so I just did one coat and I even thinned the paint to make it even lighter.  With 120 grit sandpaper, I distressed them and then sanded everything down with 600 grit paper (a MUST when using Chalk Paint as the finish is like glass!) This was a tip from my wonderful Chalk Paint distributer.
 I purchased some simple door knob plates to cover the holes in the doors and got a few silver knobs at the local ReStore and painted it all with a flat, white.
 I chose not to wax these.  With the 600 grit sandpaper, the finish is smooth and any other sealing was unnecessary.
 A simple, cheap fix for an ugly problem.  I plan on doing this in each of the other bedrooms as well.
More to come on my "Beachy Guest Room"!