Closet for a Princess

 OK well, apparently that was post 498, hahaha. I had two draft posts lurking from 2022, which I just found, affecting the overall post count. That's a little disappointing, but oh well. I definitely have at least two more posts up my sleeve (and hopefully many more), and I don't plan to update the last one with "actually I lied."

A year and a few months late, let's get into it on the room formerly known as the nursery. Here it is, in its green glory after we moved the Stuva wardrobe out.

Did we have to paint these walls, where the closets were going to be installed? D insisted that we did not, because they would be hidden by the build-in closets. However, I had to make sure the green was gone EVERYWHERE. It should come as no surprise that it took quite a bit of primer to get rid of that bright green.

Obviously the rest of the room needed to be painted as well. I took a moment of silence before painting over this mural (with a LOT of primer--even more than the green:

All gone (my babies are growing up!):

The room's recipient also wanted normal white ceilings, much to my dismay (the clouds were always something I wanted as a kid, but clearly not something my own kids wanted--oh well). So here is Sherwin Williams premium ceiling paint tinted Pure White (she allowed me to keep the clouds on the tiny ceiling in the dormer, so they're not gone entirely):

We bought many paint samples from Samplize, which we figured would be a huge upgrade from buying tiny bits of paint and slapping it on the wall. It was great until we pulled some of the hallway paint off removing the stickers...(note that we could not test the stickers in the green room, since the greenish glow would definitely affect the way the colors looked):

She went with Appleblossom, the least "pink" pink (the second up from the bottom) at our recommendation, since we learned our lesson on the green...the brightest color is probably not the best choice.

For a while, the room looked like this, partially painted just enough to start the closet installation.

After a little math work we saw that we could easily fit two Ikea Pax side by side and a have a bit of space behind the door. But....that would require jamming the right Pax against the right wall. Which has a dormer ceiling. So we figured with some sawing, it could forced in. 

The first step was remove the baseboard trim so the Pax could go as flush as possible to the back wall. 

D didn't want the Pax wardrobe totally flush against the  side wall because he was concerned it would be hard (or maybe impossible?) to open the wall-side door enough. Plus it would help to have something solid to attach the side of the wardrobe to, rather than drywall. Especially as he would need to install it in a ... non-standard way because of the extra sawing. 

So D held up the right-side board against the lowest part of the dormer and scratched a line onto the board. Then took it to the track saw and cut the edge. Which fortunately did not shatter as he cut it.  

He used some shims to wedge it all in tight. 

He did the same for the ceiling board - and also had to wedge in a scrap piece of 2x4 to hold it up.

The doors were VERY annoying as they were about an inch too tall to just fit as is. So I had to cut them all a little bit shorter. Then do a very sloppy job covering the top edge up with some leftover mat board, wood glue, and nails. 

Because we used the the 93in PAX doors with the 79in cabinet to line up near the top, D also had to cut a new set of hinge holes:

Getting sort of close!

But there were still a lot of little things to do. Spackling in gaps and installing some new trim (with pine wood quarter round) primed, then painted in semi-gloss Benjamin Moore Simply White. Which some random blog posts claimed was a good match for Ikea white. Which it sort of is (the top is the PAX door, the bottom is the painted trim).

Scrap pieces of the door and sides were used to fill in the top right triangle. Here it is, finished:

Of course we have some features on the inside like some internal PAX drawers, shelves, and bar as well as this custom this hair clip and bow board:

The left side required another scrap piece to close the top of the side (due to the shorter PAX unit and the taller PAX door, pictured above). We primed and painted it with the pink wall paint. 

You'll also see another addition to the left of the closet. Yup, this lucky kid got custom shelving too. It was a small amount of space to the side that didn't fit any ready-made furniture, but seemed perfect for displaying LEGOs (especially since the cats wouldn't find it easy to climb). We started with our favorite shelf base, the Container Store's elfa, which we've used in the living room, office closet, and linen closet. And like in the living room, we opted for our own shelving instead of using the elfa's line. 

D designed and cut a shape with a CNC that would make the most of the space available, with rounded corners so no one poked their eye out. 

The height is adjustable so we can set it to the height of whatever item she wants to display.

We have one more big project in the room and then can show the whole thing off!

A High Bar for 500

 Dear reader,

Believe it or not--and honestly *I* don't even believe it--this is the 500th post to this blog. I did not think, when we bought this house back in September 2009 (with our first post technically before closing, in August of that year), that we'd be going this long. There have been long gaps of inactivity and I'm still not caught up with everything we accomplished in 2024 during the almost year-long set of projects that began with the new addition and ended with upgrades to pretty much every bedroom in the house, but here we are, nearing the end of 2025 with 16 years of posts and, apparently, at number 500.

So it was a lot of pressure figuring out what to say! There's still plenty to write about, what with still being behind. But it felt like this post had to be different somehow. Rather than go into excruciating detail about one of the few big projects remaining to be shared, I wanted to cut to the good part and share a few amazing "after" pictures, leaving most of the in-between for later. Both are sort of an ode to D (ew, I know, emotion, gross) as he's combined his knack for fixing things with his newish hobby of carpentry into something that has transformed our house--and would have cost quite a bit of money if we had hired someone else to do it. Without further ado...

For the room that used to be the nursery, started with this:

Here it is, a quick "in-between" picture without the IKEA Stuva units, just so you can appreciate and compare the full space itself:

to THIS! Built-in closets and customs shelving, all by D (with a little help from his brother on the trim):

Our growing kid now has her own actual closet, instead of just some free-standing drawers...Again, much more to come on the "how D did it" later.

And the second big reveal, since it feels like 500 warrants more than just one, is for our entryway.

Our "before" picture actually comes from before we enclosed the sunroom, but besides that door in the background and the swapped out rug, this is pretty much what this space looked like until the beginning of 2025:

to...

ready?

It's a dramatic shift so I feel like I have to build some suspense...

...

...

...

THIS:

D designed and built a custom slat wall and matching storage bench. 

I told you it was pretty impressive. 

Here's the view from the other side where you can see the cool way it casts shadows on the ceiling, the built-in two-level hooks, and our pretty new loveseat (details later):

In looking back on these 16 years of homeownership, I would say we have upped our game (really, D has upped his game--I'm just here to cut in and edge on the painting and provide input on color and design). 

Here's to 500 more posts (or, at least, a few upcoming posts that go into more details on these two projects)!

Drinking Problem - SOLVED

Wow so this post has been in draft now for 18 months--I definitely thought I already blogged about this one, but apparently I only completed this post in my own head. This is a follow up to a post from three years ago about trying to organize and display our liquor bottles. We found the solution, as usual, at our favorite store--IKEA! The BAGGEBO:

It's a petite display cabinet that had a good amount of shelf space and fit neatly in our dining room as book ends to our sideboard. (Fun fact, it's $5 more expensive now than it was when I took that photo in-store almost two years ago.)

We installed a lighting system on a smart plug that turns on about a half hour before sunset every evening. It provides good ambient lighting and displays the alcohol that we very rarely actually drink. Lately it is more like art:

One problem with this furniture is that the two sides are a sort of mesh, which looks cool but means that the shelves and bottles get very dusty. And it's a big pain to clean. Obviously no display cabinet is air-tight, but having the two sides more-or-less completely open means that the dust builds up pretty fast.

Funny enough, when I started this post, I figured the story was done. But then in a walk around IKEA (did I mention we go there a lot?), we found this beauty:

The BLALIDEN, which didn't exist two years ago when we found our cabinets, actually solves almost every problem that remains. It is glass on all sides (though, admittedly, I like the white metal back on ours) and is taller, meaning one extra shelf to store more bottles--or space out the ones in the case. Still, at $120 each, it seems like an expensive and unnecessary upgrade to something that works almost just as well. Still, will this post have a sequel? Who knows...

In other kitchen news, we recently upgraded our cabinets by installing soft-close stops on them (by "we" of course I mean "D"):

Now we don't have to gently close the cabinet doors--we can just swing them and let the soft-close mechanism take over. This has been especially noticeable on our glass doors. Just listen to this comparison (as I'm sure will be obvious, the soft-close door goes first, followed by one without the soft-close):

Main Bedroom No More - Fit for a Tween

I'm yet again faced with the task of documenting an "after" without good "before" pictures. It turns out that after we got the basics of our bedroom put together in 2010, I never took another picture again. So this post from nearly 15 years ago (!) doesn't quite reflect how our primary bedroom looked in 2024, but it's pretty close:

By last year, we had an end-table screwed into the wall (same post as above) and some different throw pillows, but the room looked mostly the same--static for more than a decode. Then last year when we had to move speedily through all the cascading changes, we transformed it in one weekend.

Here is how the room looks now:

You'll notice that we kept the IKEA Mandal bed (which would not have gotten out of the room in one piece anyway) and Brimnes headboard, since that headboard worked great with our oversized baseboard heaters. The walls are Sherwin Williams Hyacinth Tint, though we kept the ceilings and the closet doors the color we had painted them originally, an off-white Fleur de Sel matte. 

We actually started off with our original white IKEA flokati rug, but the cats had other plans and after someone mistook it for the litter box, we went with this all-artificial plush turquoise number from Wayfair. It's machine washable. It also matches the beanbag chair in the corner--both are a soft greenish blue.

My vanity corner, here, has also transformed. You can't see it well here but the vanity without the mirror is what I'm currently using as a sewing table. And the masks have moved. 

It's now a combination makeup and homework space, yet more IKEA furniture: desk (Micke) and chair. And of course the obligatory bulletin board:

Then from this angle, you can see we rearranged things a bit. Where our dresser was, we now have a bookshelf, our IKEA Hemnes from the office, painted in the same Hyacinth Tin in an attempt to blend it into the wall. The dresser, also IKEA, was originally in the kids' (green) room but actually is part of the Mandal series that always went with this bed, so now they are actually in the same room. The lamp was also in our previous bedroom - you can see it in the corner in both of these shots:

We painted the kick board doors the blue that is in our upstairs bathroom, Russian Blue, just for fun. Blue and purple are the primary decor colors, if it wasn't obvious (and this time we went with true black-out curtains, after over a decade of having curtains that let too much light in during the summer months).

In the end, it looks both very similar and eerily different--like an alternative reality. Since both kids got a decor and furniture budget, they were very conscious of trying to reuse things we already had. The bed, headboard, dresser, lamp, and bookshelf were all reused. The beanbag, end table/stuffed toy bucket, and linens (rug, duvet cover, curtains) were new. It's amazing how a change in color scheme can remake a space.

Disappearing Guest Room

You know you've been in your house for a while when your "before" pictures were "after" pictures not too long ago. In the cascading changes that started with our new addition and ended with the kids each getting their own bedroom, we redid the guest room after finding a new use for the furniture in there (more on that later). The biggest change: installing a Murphy bed, so now the room is so much more spacious for our crafting activities and still can transform into a guest room for the few times (seriously, just once or twice a year) that we have visitors.

After much research by D, we went with Wilding Wallbeds for our Murphy bed. They were a little pricy but we liked that they were made with all real hardwood, rather than plywood, MDF, and veneer. Specifically, we got the Remington in natural/alder finish.

The problem? The thing was SO hard to build. D is very handy (seriously, just wait a few posts and I'll show off his amazing carpentry skills) and I watched him struggle to put it together. And, in fact, there are some holes in the wrong spot. Because he had to DRILL HIS OWN HOLES. We knew this would be no IKEA assembly, but we still figured that holes would be predrilled, for example. It didn't help that we were up against a deadline because of course it would, in fact, be the once-to-twice-a-year time that we were having visitors. For a couple of weeks, the room looked like this:

Before I show you how great the finished product looked, let me dig up a picture from a 2021 post as our "before" picture.

And here it is now! We got a bookshelf on one side and the desk addition. The desk is so cool--you can leave things on the desk when the bed is open. Look at all that floor space!

And here is the bed extended. You can see that decor-wise, it looks very similar to how it did pre-Murphy bed. Same pictures, same bedspread, etc. But now we have a queen-sized bed and a much cushier mattress, instead the full-sized regular bed that had been there. And it folds right away for most of the year!

We also made a few updates on the other side of the room. Here was the "before" picture:

I chose to keep the vanity I had used in our pre-addition bedroom rather than the campaign desk (real wood antique-store find rather than a Target buy) and I lost the storage in the tall dresser and had to figure out where to store my craft supplies. 

You may recognize that tall piece from a very different place:

That's right. I moved around some doors and spray painted the bottom drawer (and the leg caps) gray and now it's blends right in! No more neon green, no more baby room. Just lots of beading, fabrics, and embroidery floss storage.

And it wasn't really worth photographing, but most of the closet storage we installed in the office here has now been relocated to this room. The door unit now contains most of our paints and glues and the mesh drawers holds playdoh, stamps, and knitting supplies. And most important, it's all contained and largely neat (or, at least, hidden away).

The hard part now is just remembering to call it the craft room and not the guest room!

An office to work in

For years, the so-called "office" was anything but. Despite our best efforts at organization over many years (see: 2017 closet redo,  2018, and 2020), it was impossible to keep it looking like an office with toys in it. It always resembled a messy toy room with a desk in it. Here's a view two walls, a few weeks after we broke ground on the addition but way before they had to start coming in the house (and therefore also before our crown molding project):

The other side is no better (probably worse). You can see that we are still using the 2017 closet system, but really had trouble containing all the kids things.

In the end, there really wasn't a magical solution except adding more space. By building the addition, we were able to give each kid a bedroom (more on those updates in future posts) and that gave them the space to move the toys to their rooms. Are their bedrooms magically neater and better organized? Of course not! But now at least the mess is their problem. Admittedly their rooms ARE much neater than these office pictures, because they have more storage space and fewer toys (items are divided across two bedrooms and also they are just growing up and keeping fewer toys, *sob*). They also think twice now about accruing stuff--at one point, I almost shed tears of joy when one child said: "I want this, but I have nowhere to put it."

So with the toys out, how did we decorate? I'm so glad you asked! We knew we wanted to create a kind of hallway to divide the desk area from the path into the addition, and found a cute barrister bookcase in an antique shop with two layers. Because of the modular way it is constructed, it was easy to dismantle and bring home. The top needs resurfacing, but otherwise it is in pretty good condition and creates a room divider that doesn't leave either side too cramped, because it's only about chest-high.

With that purchased, we knew that the other piece, that would go on the now-empty wall across from the addition, ought to match and be a medium wood without too much trim. We perused a bunch of mid-century modern shops and set up keywords in various online marketplaces, but it was clear it was going to cost a lot to get something we liked. UNTIL we lucked out and found someone selling a piece on Craiglist for $50. True, it was almost an hour away and, true, it seemed impossible to get home, but D was up to the challenge. It was completely modular and D managed to tetris the whole thing--two bookcases with cabinets, into our SUV in a very impressive way:

The piece, made in Yugoslavia--apparently a popular place for "cheap" MCM furniture in the 1970s and 80s--is absolutely amazing. This might be one of my favorite pieces of furniture now, made especially sweet by the thrill of the hunt (I think that's also why I enjoy perusing antique shops). This is really the view from our bedroom now, so it's important to me that it looks nice, showing off books I enjoy without being overly cluttered.

We also bought a new filing cabinet (and printer stand). Nothing too exciting, but it's nicer than the cheap medal filing cabinet that was so flimsy that it dented if we opened it by pulling on the draw itself and CERTAINLY nicer than the milk crate stack holding the printer.

And that's our office!