Work continues on my daughters bedroom and there has been some big changes to share. Painting the bedroom was not the biggest project I tackled in this room. I decided to gut her closet in order to create a desk area for her. From here on out it shall be referred to as the cloffice.

People have mixed feelings about getting rid of closet space so let me address that first. I’m not worried about resale since I don’t plan on going anywhere. I’ll put that one out there first. If you are planning on moving at all in the future this is still an option for you, just set the doors aside somewhere. You might not want to do the extensive job that I did if that is your plan. 

Then there is the question of where my daughter will hang all her clothes. She is not a girl that wears dresses. Or skirts. Or blouses. She wears jeans and tshirts and jogging pants. She owns about three dresses for special occasions which hang in my closet. Her bedroom also has a built in cabinet next to the closet which is large enough to put a curtain rod in if I ever need to in the future. 

The bedroom is on the small size so gaining floor space by utilizing her closet was a great solution. Before that the closet was a large dumping ground. A closet system would have worked also but we already had all the furniture for storage. She even has a huge drawer under her bed for toys. Don’t forget the built in cabinet which currently holds bins with toys. 

This is the type of situation where you need to figure out what works best for the occupant. I left the closet for almost three years and saw that it needed something drastic in order to work for her. Clean open spaces means no place for piles of clothes and toys to hide. Gaining square footage in the room was important as well. The desk area took up a corner of her room and was placed in front of half the closet anyways.

So I began by removing the doors. I place all her desk items including the current desk itself in the closet for a couple days to make sure she liked the setup. (I’ll be building a new floating desk in the cloffice.)  I didn’t want to do all this work only to be told it wasn’t working for her. She liked the floor space she gained in her room and was very happy to have nothing in front of her window.

I can’t tell you how many times I let her know that it was going to look a lot worse before it got better. Some children don’t always like change, especially in their personal space where little brother are not allowed on a regular basis. By the time the closet was emptied her room looked like the boys had done a job on it. I made sure to let her know it would be a multiple step process. We also put together this drawing of what we wanted it to look like in the end.

Then the fun part started. Everything came out. The closet track was removed. The shelf and clothes bar were removed, as well as the cleats holding up the shelf. My boys were helping out and they now have a whole new appreciation for me after seeing me weld a crow bar. 

Once everything was removed and all the old nails and pieces of wood were safely brought to the garage my cleaning crew came in and finished up. They work for cheap. I paid them with milk, cookies and gummy bears.

Once all the dust was cleaned up I spackled the holes left by the removed shelving. I let it dry overnight and then sanded it down. I stopped work on the closet at that point in order to paint the room. I wanted to do this messy work before I painted the walls in the room because of the dust and mess involved. I also didn’t want to nick the walls with the shelving as it made its way out. 

Giving myself a schedule on a project like this helped me from becoming overwhelmed. When I get an idea I often rush to get it done. Being patient on this project really paid off in that I concentrated on one small project at a time. “What’s next , ” you ask. Painting, of course. Here is a sneak peak…