I did it my waaayyyyyyy

I've always had this tendency to want to put my own swing on things: style, research papers, lesson plans...you name it! After moving into my current house, it took me a long time to get settled because of the lack of usable space in my closet. (2 hanging rods? Puh-Leaze)

I also needed drawers. Just drawers. I found that the ones that I only sort of wanted were kind of a lot of money...there was a little bit of a conflict of interest there. The story's actually outlined here. My dad thought it would've been easier for me to just get something at IKEA, but is it really wrong for me to want to buy things I want to keep?

I find that motivation is easier to come by when I have a big project that needs to be done...just kind of staring me in the face.

This was staring me in the face.

I'd never sanded before. Never stained wood. It didn't sound too difficult. Time consuming? Probably, but nothing hard.

Ta-da!

And here's what I did! Before I was thinking of doing this cool two tone design, but...then I saw the stain colors that Minwax offered and my eyes stuck on Bayou Green. I was iffy on the two tone design anyway and right now, I'm really happy with how it came out. My logic with the green was that at some point, I'd like to move this dresser out of my closet and have it display elsewhere.

It was a learning experience. Stripping paint is hard. I started off with 120 grain before slowly realizing that to strip off the paint, I had to go down to 60 grain sandpaper. Sheesh.

Anyway, finishing this allowed me to finally get my clothes in order. And after getting my dresser in the closet, I realized that I still didn't have enough closet space to accommodate the mess strewn around my room.

For some extra hanging space, I added IKEA's Portis Hat Rack to accommodate my button downs that still needed to be ironed at the time. The layout of my closet is two hanging rods on opposite sides of a long closet, that middle space wasn't being used and I found it's useless presence rather irritating.

Lots of ironing and folding later... I had a full closet. From left to right:

blazers & skirts on the rod. Sweaters, jeans, cotton trousers, and shorts on the shelf. That yellow bag is my sock bag.

Center: blouses, shirts, the dresser with foldables.

Left: dresses and dress slacks.

Small closets and me just don't get along, There are some things I just won't get rid of. I've adapted to so many closets over the past 6 years, it doesn't rub me the right way to feel I have to get rid of things here and there when I know the most of the places I've been living have always been on some kind of temporary basis.

You know what's the odd thing about closets? Even if you have an avalanche of clothes outside of your closet, having a relatively empty closet can really give you the feeling the something is lacking in your wardrobe...even if you actually have too much.