Closet Shelf Organization

I have a tall set of shelves in my walk in closet that I've tried many, many times to organize.  Here's how things typically go...shelves are a mess, I straighten them but don't love the result, gradually they become less and less organized, and then I repeat the steps.  This time I wanted to make them organized in a way that made sense to me, and in a way that would be easy to maintain.

 I have always kept handbags, shoes, and swim suits/cover ups on these particular shelves, although they really aren't set up to store that type of thing.  I'm they type of OCD person who wants things perfect, but if I can't get them that way, I just pretend it doesn't exist until I can't take it anymore.  The shelves in my closet are pretty deep from front to back and I hadn't ever figured out an ideal way to do things, therefore I always end up with this after a few months...

Completely horrifying, I know.  Fact of the matter is, when I open my closet door and walk in, the door blocks these shelves, so it is pretty easy for me to ignore the problem.  Until the shoes start falling off the shelves, and block the door from opening anyway. :)

I set off to the Dollar Tree store and to Target the other day (with my kids in tow, which turned out to not be my best decision of the day) on a mission to find a new solution to the shoe and swim suit problem in my closet.  The Dollar Tree was a great choice.  They had tons of fun, bright colored storage bins, and of course you can't beat the "Everything's $1" price tags.  $3 later I had the perfect bins for my closet.  Next, we went to Target to find small, white, tension rods.  I bought 28"-48" rods for $2.98 (on sale...a whopping 5% discount folks!!), and ended up grabbing eight of them because I wasn't sure how many I'd need.

After I got home, I threw all the shoes on the floor and went to work.  The top shelf I only used one rod, I put it up high and to the very back, and I hung all of my heels from it.  In front of there I just lined up all my boots and wedges that were either too tall to hang or didn't have heels to hang from.  

On the next shelf, I had to get a little more creative.  I used two tension rods about four inches apart up towards the back, and then another set several inches below the top set.  On these, I put my flats.  There as enough space below the second set to put another row of shoes directly under, and almost enough to put another in front of that.  My shoes aren't small, I wear a size 10, so they take up a lot of space.  I added a tension rod at the same level as the shelf, but about three inches in front of it, and rested the toes of another row of shoes on that.  

Next I divided all of my swim suits, cover ups, and flip flops and put them each in their own storage bin.  I used another tension rod to extend my shelf a bit so that I could fit all three bins together.  I stuck my running shoes on there as well, since I didn't have room for them up above. 

Below the bottom shelf is where I keep all of my tall boots.  I cut up a pool noodle (thanks Pinterest!) and used the pieces to hold the boots up straight.

 This project was a pretty simple one, but I think will make a huge difference for me.  I feel like I finally have a set up that will be easy to maintain and where everything is easy to access and find.  Now maybe my husband will stop saying things like "I feel like there has to be a better use for that shelf area back there." :)

Before/After

Fabric Covered Canvas DIY

Before we got our new bed, I had a grand plan for one of the bare walls in our room.  However, when we got the bigger bed, we moved it to that all, thus ruining my plans.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the wall until I found some super fab elephant prints in the BlackBaraoque Etsy shop.  They are printed on antique book pages and are really gorgeous in person.  I have a major thing for elephants, and fell in love with the prints right away.  I originally ordered only one (the elephant w/flowers), because at that point I wasn't sure what to do with it, but felt it needed to be somewhere in my house.  I glanced at the site about a week later, and really, really had to have two others as well.

Once we had a plan for the headboard, I knew that I wanted to put the elephant prints above it.  I loved the elephants with the heart and wanted it to go in the center, but felt that it needed a more dramatic frame to showcase it.  I tend to hang on to things for way too long, and had some old 8x10 silver picture frames (from our old house...that we moved out of 10 years ago) that I could spray paint black.  I had leftover paint from the handles on the dresser refinish I did, so that was easy.  I had fabric leftover from making the pillows for the church pew, so I decided to cover a canvas and then hang the frame on that.  The 11x14 canvas was only $5.99 for a pack of two at Hobby Lobby, making this project pretty cheap.

I wanted quick and easy, and I got it.  I sprayed the frames and set them aside to dry.  For the canvas, I put the fabric face down, sprayed the canvas with spray adhesive, and pressed them together.  Next I flipped it over, sprayed the sides and back edges, and folded the fabric up.  I trimmed the extra fabric off, folded the corners down, and stapled them.  Done and done. 

The only thing left was to hang the canvas, measure where I wanted the other pictures to hang, and hang them all up.  Super easy!  The picture on the top left really isn't hanging crooked...that would send me over the edge.  I just didn't hold my phone straight enough when I took the picture and didn't feel like going back upstairs to redo it.

Headboard DIY

We upgraded to a king size bed a few months ago, but after endless searching, I couldn't find a bed that I liked at all.  After many failed searches, we ended up just buying the mattress/box springs, and a bed frame and I decided that we would just build a headboard that I liked.

I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, but wasn't exactly sure how to make it work, so I did some research and then decided to wing it.

I knew I didn't want wood with knots, or any kind of imperfections, so I went with these primed boards from Lowes.  I got a variety of widths for the main part, and for the side trim pieces.  A king size bed is 76" wide, and the typical king headboard is 78", so I went with that for the total width.  We measured everything and my husband cut them for me.

Next, I painted each board using the same color paint I used in my Dresser Refinish and Church Pew Refinish posts.  I love the Olympic brand paint from Lowes, and use it for pretty much anything I paint.

I wanted one of the boards to be different, and I decided I wanted to cover it with the same fabric I used for the Church Pew.  I got it from fabric.com and love it.  I laid the fabric wrong side up, sprayed the board with spray adhesive, and then carefully pressed the board on to the fabric.  I let it sit for a minute, then flipped it over, sprayed the other side, and folded the fabric the rest of the way around.  The spray adhesive I got allows you time to re position if you need to, which was much appreciated.

When I started researching how to build furniture several months ago, it became very apparent to me that I needed to buy a Kreg Jig.  I convinced my husband we needed it for this project, and he was kind enough to purchase it for me, even though he had never seen one before.  He now thinks it is one of the greatest tools ever, so I feel super smart for recommending it. :)  It allows you to drill at these fun little angles so that it is easy to attach boards without having the screws showing.  We drilled holes into the boards that would be the main part of the headboard and then attached them to the side pieces.

We struggled a lot deciding how to hang the headboard on the wall.  I didn't want screws showing, and the studs in our wall didn't line up with where we would ideally attach the headboard.  In the end, we used two  1"x2"x8' boards (that we cut to 75" so that you wouldn't see them behind the headboard).  We attached them to the studs in the wall, and then screwed the side pieces of the headboard to them.  We used the Kreg Jig again on the trim pieces so that we could screw them in from the top on bottom to attach them to the front of the headboard, allowing for no screws to be seen from the front.

Here are the boards, and the headboard before the final trim was added.

I love how it turned out!  We sat in our room last night and looked around at the built in shelves (my husband built them a few years ago for me...pictures coming soon), the headboard, and the church pew and dresser I refinished, and realized that we have essentially made everything in there.  Everything is exactly how I wanted it to be, and none of it could have been purchased because it is all my design.  That makes me super happy!

Finished product...