Nightstands

Austin and I need nightstands for the master bedroom. We currently have a single nightstand which is on Austin's side since he is in charge of the alarm clock. That means my glasses an anything I read before bed live on the floor next to the bed. It also means that I can't have a lamp on my side. Both are problematic.

I've had this nightstand pinned to my Things I want to Make board for a while.

Source: ana-white.com via Amber on Pinterest

It's very similar in shape to our current solo one which I love and have considered replicating to have a matching set. I'm also open to nightstands that don't match as long as they "work."

Yesterday I saw this nightstand Shaunna West pinned and had a flash of inspiration.

Source: vintagerevivals.blogspot.com via Amber on Pinterest

I love the color on the before.

I thought that was the answer. Find or make nightstands and paint them awesome distressed green.

Now I'm having some doubts about that.

I'm sure about the shape though. The one we have, the plan I pinned to build, and two others are the same basic structure. 

I would really like to add yellow trim to our sheets to make them more the ones from my Illustrated Discovery Journal.

And I'm thinking I want to make a couple of beer bottle lamps like I have at my Etsy shop, from Life & Limb bottles to solve my lamp issue. I mocked one up so you can get an idea.

And then there is The Bed. Here's a sneak peak at the foot board before my mom added the fancy trim and stained it.

Based on all that I'm thinking maybe green might be too much. What about mustard?

Pretty sure Austin will hate that idea so maybe I just need to make another to match our current one and stick with the distressed black it already is. Hmm.

Just One Thing: A Hook for My Robe

I worked on a ton of projects this weekend.

Right after breakfast I did some laundry and took the recyclables to the recycling center (without a total breakdown). Then I started caulking these cracks in the board and batten I put up in the master bedroom.

I helped Austin with the first coat of paint in the nursery. I suffered a tiny bit of collateral damage ( please excuse the fact that I obviously haven't painted my toe nails since before I got pregnant),

and we ran out of paint, but he found a creative outlet.

I also took the table saw I got for Christmas out of the box, and even started working on super awesome budget friendly glass curtain rods finials for the guest bedroom (Don't worry, I'll post a how-to on those one just as soon as I get them finished).

Are you noticing a pattern here?

I started or worked on a lot of things, but I didn't finish any of them.  I was getting seriously frustrated.

Then I had a moment of inspiration; I needed to follow Austin's easy project policy (i.e. do the thing that takes little effort and will actually increase your quality of life). So I picked a little project I've been thinking about for a while. I put a hook on the back of our bedroom door for my robe.

It's winter and we don't exactly keep the house at an optimal temperature for getting up in middle of the night in your skivvies to go to the bathroom (a frequent occurrence when you're pregnant) or let the dogs out (a common result of waking up the dogs when you get up to go to the bathroom). I have a robe, but the only place to hang it up is in the bathroom which means my options are to walk to the bathroom without it or keep the robe on the floor next to the bed.

I'll let you guess where it's been for most of the last two months.

But it's not anymore.

Not exactly the most exciting or impressive home improvement project I've ever undertaken, but I'm pretty happy about finishing it.

DIY Closet Organizer Reveal: You can have your duffel bag back now.

I finished the closet up yesterday morning. I thought about posting a "so close and yet so freaking far" commentary after Tuesday's building. I got most of it done, but I ran out of shelf supports.

It doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but when the whole point of the exercise is to cease keeping your shoes in a pile and your socks and underwear in a suitcase, a closet organizer which is mostly finished, but still retains these two key features isn't much good. It looks like a real closet organizer though.

Except for the pile of shoes still on the floor and that damn suitcase. There's also a duffel bag full of shoes farther in on the floor behind the wall. I borrowed it from my mom when I moved my clothes out of storage in her house.

I looks a lot better in comparison to the before.

Wednesday I had to make a run to Wichita for a very important item and I picked up more shelf supports on the way home. My shoes now all have a happy home and a new pair of friends I picked up on the trip.

That's them on top. A fancy new pair of green Chucks. They only had one pair in the whole store which was on clearance and my size. I took it as a sign. Almost as fabulous as my monkey sock slippers and those glorious goldenrod peep toe pumps with the leather buckle down towards the bottom.

We haven't shifted much of Austin's clothes into the closet shelving, but I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, my underwear might have a home in the dresser someday. A girl can dream right?

I'm going to paint the whole thing out when I paint the bedroom and add a couple of more shelves, but to be honest, I was totally over the whole thing by the end of the day on Tuesday. I ended up spending about $140 on wood and a box of shelf supports. More than some people spend on their closets I'm sure, but only 20% of the cost of the systems I planned if I bought it from that website.

I made a plan for a DIY closet organizer: you can't live with your clothes in a suitcase or strewn across the floor forever.

Well, I guess maybe you could. I have for over a year now. Between moving back from Atlanta before Thanksgiving last year and the day we moved into The Parsonage on Nov 5th I didn't have a closet (or dresser for that matter) where I was living. I had a closet at my parent's house, but working four hours away and then being married to someone who lived four hours away made it a little less than convenient for storing the clothes I actually wanted to wear. Austin offered me some space in his dresser, but that just meant his stuff ended up in laundry hampers.

I finally had a closet, however, the closet in the master bedroom is, shall we say, less than functional. It was clearly a misguided DIY attempt which includes no shelves and a single bar which is supported in the center by a rather cobbled together set of boards and requires a board across the opening around 4 1/2 feet high.

Confused? Try the picture.

That white strip of board is even with the back of the door to the closet (like the doors rest against it and it blocks access to the top. I took off the sliding 4'x6'6" mirrored doors so you could really see what was going on and because I needed them off to be able to get the carpet out (It's all coming out eventually, but for this week I'm just taking out the bit that's in the way of the new closet organizer). As you can see, this organizational system is NOT working.

This closet needs help and when I saw Ana White's DIY Simple Closet Organizer I got inspired.

Then I found a website selling closet organizational systems while image searching closet organizers trying to come up with the perfect plan. It lets you put in the measurements of your closet and tell it what kind of doors you have (it really does make a difference in how your closet would be organized most functionally) and then provides a customizable closet organization plan. Here's mine.

And with the walls.

Not sure how they knew our master bedroom is currently that pale shade of peach. Not for long. I have plans, but that is a project for once our clothes have a home.

Pretty shnazzy, huh? It's got a whole lot of shelves and a double hanging system on one side for The Hubs and a split between double hanging and tall hanging with shelves (the maxi dresses have to go somewhere) on my side. Our closet isn't actually as deep as they assume and the shelves on the side are going to face inward instead of forward so I can actually access the things inside them. I'm also putting the bottom half of the shelves closer together for use as shoe organizers on both sides and making the whole system shallower to work in our less than standard depth closet.

Note the price tag on this little number. Ouch. I'm planning to build mine for significantly less. I haven't gotten to the lumber store yet today, but I have ripped out that carpet and cleaned up the floor underneath. I'm waiting on the electrician to come fix the outlets in the upstairs (yep, the ones that were supposed to be rewired as part of the sales contract on the house). As soon as he shows up and I let him in I can take the dogs for a spin around the park and get cracking on this project.