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)!