Oh HEY! I know y’all thought I forgot about this or dropped the ball…I did not. I’ve been a busy bee working away on my tasks. I do have some updates I’ll share about some of the previous days, but this one is MEATY and kind of exciting. I got to make some home project progress from January Cure: Day 2 – Make a Home Project To-Do List. For reference, the project I chose was the MESS UNDER THE STAIRS.
It is currently scary. My ultimate goal with this project is to install shelving that organizes the space and makes it not terrifying. I don’t have the tools I need to make this happen, but I still wanted forward momentum.
These were my goals for day 12:
- Pull everything out! Clean the floor and walls!
- Get rid of stuff we don’t need!
- Rehome things that don’t need to be in this particular closet.
- Locate the studs.
- Measure the space.
- Put EVERYTHING back in a less shitty way.
- Start planning the design of the closet and make a list of what I’ll need.
Again, I’m going to post some before and after photos, but these will be highly underwhelming compared to the eventual outcome.
This is what it looked like before.
The photo on the left is what it looked like when the door was open. The second photos is the even bigger mess hidden behind the mass of jackets and bags, and as you can see, it’s a total disorganized catch-all.
Gutting the Closet
I pulled ALL the things out. Look at all the things.
Then I swept and mopped! That felt good. The walls were a mess of scuff marks, so I took used Magic Erasers to help the situation.
I ended up blowing through TWO whole Magic Erasers to clean off the walls. Should I have just repainted?
… >.> … Nah!
I then looked at all the things and made some minor improvements, like re-organizing some of the bins so that like-things were together and removing some coats. (CJ and I don’t each need more than four coats downstairs at any given time, so the surplus moved to the “other” coat closet upstairs.)
Prepping for Shelving
While the closet was empty, I used a stud finder to locate all the studs. (The structural kind. There were no fertile horses under the stairs.) I also measured the space so I can start figuring out rails and shelf configuration. My grand vision will include building the shelving OVER the litter box, but then dropping down behind it so that the shelving can run deep into the closet. This means that we’ll be taking down the current shelf and coat rack.
For coats, I’m thinking that we’ll each have a wall hook or hooks behind the door. Naturally this means we’ll be limited to even fewer coats downstairs…but that’s probably…”fine”?
Putting Things Back!
I did a minor bit of reorganization. Again, this is a temporary solution until we put in shelving and make this less of a nightmare.
Not really a huge visual difference, however I do feel like things are a bit more accessible and less hectic. Ultimately, it will be easier to pull all this stuff out when the hardware arrives!
Next Steps for Home Project Progress
Oi! Finding the right shelving system is already a bit of a pain. There are so many out there and what I really want is sturdy, easy, and versatile. In an ideal world, I will also be able to find something aesthetically pleasing. However, as this will mostly be hidden under the stairs, I’ll happily settle for organized.
My list of next steps:
- Identify my shelving solution and order all necessary hardware.
- Plan my shelves. I still don’t know if I’m going to go for 12″ or 16″ for shelving depth.
- Order the correct size storage bins that will fit nicely on the shelves while storing all the things.
- Order a new ladder. The one we have is ridiculous and takes up way too much room. Something lighter and smaller will suit our needs and make me less cranky.
- Make a decision on coat and bag hanging solutions.
I hope to order all the things in the next day or two so I can build the shelving next week! Yay!
Thanks for hanging with me for this installment of “I’m Losing My Damn Mind Stuck Inside the House and Omnicron is a Fucker”. Stay tuned to see more inane ways in which I try to pretend I have control over anything.
