Closet Update

I’ve been working on decking the halls around here and I have to say, I’m totally and extremely giddy about decorating this year! It may be because I have a different “canvas” to work on or the fact that my oldest is super into Christmas this year. He wants to “play Christmas” with all the decorations that are out waiting to be put up! He found some ornaments today and exclaimed…”Are these going on the tree? OOOOHHH!” He found a little Christmas tree and a snowman that he hauled around with him all day and wanted to sleep with, but I told him they had to settle to hang out on their bookshelf overnight.  I’ve been working on my mantle decoration the past couple of days and he was such a sweetheart when he discovered what had been done, he ran upstairs to get his dad and make him come down to see what mommy had been up to!!!

But before I share all the red and green that has been added to our home, I wanted to wrap up my office closet with a quick update. 

You know how I mentioned easy the Elfa system was to install? What I really meant was it was super easy for my husband (who isn’t all that handy-sorry J) to install. I had really never actually drilled the holes in the wall. I came in after the header bar was installed and worked my magic. But my hubby was out of town all last week for work and I mentioned to him that he may need to get ready to do some closet hardware hanging when he got home. Then I got to thinking…I can do this. I wanted to have it all done for when he got home (after all, it’s his office too. He works from home most days out of the same office :) 

So I got my drill out and started drilling some holes. I remembered that there was something that we always did that sometimes made it a bit more difficult until we figured it out after about the 3rd one we installed, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. 

Until I started drilling. And then I remembered. 

If you drill too close to the ceiling, you’ll hit the wood framing and it gets infinitely more difficult. But I didn’t realize this until I had drilled 4 holes, and was putting in my drywall anchors that wouldn’t go in that I remembered. So I moved my header bar down a few inches and went at it again. This time it worked. So if you’re ever over, don’t look too closely at the top of the closet as there are 4 giant holes that I attempted to cover with the bar but failed to do so! But I have to say, I’m pretty proud that I did this all by myself, with no help!!!

Now, it definitely needs some beautifying, and I have a plan for that little shelving unit with the wire baskets for clients’ fabrics, materials, etc. that I will work on soon. And I’m not quite sure what to do with that one wire on the right. Don’t you just hate moving into a new home where you have no idea what random wires hook up to what? I think it’s to the alarm system (the tan box and the little white control box) so I definitely don’t want to cut it but I think I need to tack it down a bit better! But so far, I think it’s coming along pretty good.

I decided to add the 16″ depth shelves from Elfa on the left side for various binders we have, (the our “Home Appliance” binder (that keeps all the manuals, etc.) and some binders for our rental and whatnot-that I hope to make all the same and a bit cuter). I also went with the longer rails, so in case we wanted to change it up in the future, I don’t have to go back and buy longer rails. I’m also storing all our older, big photo albums up on the built-in shelf. I want to eventually rip out all the old shelving and just open it up and come up with a new design but for now, the existing shelving is working out just fine.

I’m thinking of adding some cork tiles to pin up some smaller stuff in there and maybe add some more shelves or display some of our awards from work that we don’t really want out on display. We will be getting closet doors, but we took the old ones off and decided to just wait until we have it in the budget to add the ones we want. 

So for now, it’s much more functional that it was before! And I’m so happy to have some order to my our office. And now I get to go full force on our holiday decorating! I’m working on some fun crafty projects that I will share in the coming week or so. 

Did any of you complete that large or small project that has been looming over you and staring you down?! If so, we’d love to hear what you’ve been working on! 

I’m off to deck the halls!