Organizing your Heart and Home…Closet Makeover!

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Okay ladies,

The fun has begun!

Have you found THAT CLOSET in your home that you want to reorganize?

Clothes closet?

Craft closet?

Linen closet?

This is the week to get it done!

I tackled my craft closet this week.

This is the closet in my upstairs office.

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It is full of random craft supplies that I have used with teaching preschool over the years.

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And I have a ton of children’s books and teacher manuals to use when teaching.

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This used to be a clothes closet, but when we turned this little room into my office, my hubby added a bunch of shelves.

Unfortunately, it has become a place where I stuff all the junk that I don’t know what to do with.

Isn’t it lovely?

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So here are the steps I followed to clean out my closet…

1. Clear it all out!

It’s looking better already.

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2.  Separate everything into piles.

I had three piles:

Goodwill

Keep

Throw Away

You might want to add a Sell pile if you think you could make money selling your stuff at a yard sale or a consignment store.

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Unfortunately…my throw away pile was the smallest!  :)

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And my KEEP pile was the largest…see the pile in the middle of the hallway?

Those are most of my teaching materials that I do not use right now and probably won’t be using for several more years.  So they definitely needed to go into storage.

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3.  Clean your closet before putting stuff back in.

You may need to clean the baseboards or the shelves, or even sweep or vacuum the floor.

I actually added a fresh coat of paint to all of the shelves and used Khaki Shade by Sherwin Williams to paint the walls behind the shelves.  It is the same color of paint that is on our walls.

I didn’t have to do this step, but we already had the paint supplies out from our master bedroom closet makeover, so they were very handy.  (Or I may have skipped this step.)

You could also add contact paper to your shelves if you didn’t have any paint handy.

4.  Decide how you want to organize your stuff.

I decided I wanted to hang a peg board on the closet door to organize my supplies.  The plastic shoe hanger I was using wasn’t working…it looked like a mess!

So I went to Lowe’s and asked them to cut me an 18 x 48 inch piece of peg board.  It cost $4.95ish.

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I didn’t want to keep it brown, so I spray painted it black in my freezing cold garage.

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Then I hung the peg board on the back of my closet door.

I bought a package of metal pegs from Lowe’s to hang my supplies from.

5.  Put items back in closet.

I put the items I use the most on my pegboard so they were easy to reach.

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I also added a folder holder, metal buckets and a clipboard.

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I will share how I made each of these in a later post.

For my shelves, I organized my materials with containers I already had.

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The wire baskets I got at Goodwill last year for a dollar piece knowing that I would use them someday.  :)

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The small Ball glass jars I got a Walmart.  They cost about $3.00 for four jars.

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I am so glad that my craft/office supplies are so easy to see and easy to get to.

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The Before and After…

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YEAH!!!  I am so glad I got this finished!  And I have YOU to thank!

So….THANK YOU!!!!

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Here’s a tip when using baskets to organize your closet:

**Don’t spend a lot of money on matching sets of baskets.

If you are wanting to get matching baskets for your closet, do NOT go to a store and spend a ton of money on matching baskets!

Shop your home or shop Goodwill.

Find baskets that are the shape and size that you need and then buy a can of spray paint in the color you like.

Spray paint all the baskets you have the same color and now you have a matching set of organizing containers!

And they will look great!

Here is an example from creativelydomestic.com…

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basketsoutside

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Since I only had pictures of my craft closet today, tomorrow I will be sharing some inspirational ideas on how to organize your clothes closet!

This Friday, January 14th, will be our Closet Makeover Linky Party!!!!

I cannot wait to see what you ladies have been up to.

Every person who links up will be entered in a drawing for a fabulous giveaway!

If you do not have a blog, but you want to participate and be entered in the giveaway, just email me the before and after pictures of your closet at

beneathmyheart4(at)gmail(dot)com.

Now ladies….let’s not forget the most important part of this series!

Let’s be sure to take time to organize our hearts!

I don’t know about you, but when I pass away some day, I do not want people say about me…”Wow!  That Traci sure had organized closets!”

No.

I want them to say… “Wow!  What a beautiful heart she had!”

I’m headed over to my sister’s blog right now to get started on organizing my heart.

Will you join me?

Click the button below!

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Have a blessed day!

Linking this makeover to…
Visit thecsiproject.com

34 Comments

  1. You did great! I’m loving the pegboard idea! I want to participate so bad; but, it’d be hard because we’re still in boxes! and, the closet in my crafts room is also used to store Christmas stuff as we do not have an attic here at this house.

    But, let me tell you this, I resolve to organize my closet when we finally get the home of our own… :-)

  2. I am currently going through storage trying to get rid of my teaching supplies. It is incredible what you can accumulate and how attached you can be to these materials. My husband seemed to get a kick out of watching me “suffer” through the sorting.

    I like the idea of the peg board in the closet. I will have to use that in my supply closet as well.

  3. Traci-
    You did a great job on your closet makeover! I’m sure you feel great having got that accomplished! Love the peg board & love all of your containers for all of your stuff! And really LOVE that verse from Philippians! One of my favorites!

  4. Love what you did – looks Fabulous. I wish the door in my sewing room walk in closet opened to the outside, but it swings in : ( would love to have the door to use as extra real estate.

  5. I love your approach! Doing it first, showing us, giving us a chance to do it… perfect. I hope I can get it done by the time you have the blog party! Love the blog design!

  6. Hello!
    The closet makeover was dramatic. :) It didn’t appear that all of your old school stuff went back into the closet. (of course maybe it was soooo organized that I didn’t notice it) In case it didn’t go back in the closet, where did you store it? I have a lot of stuff from when I was teaching fifth grade full time. I have already sorted it and donated what I no longer wanted to keep, but I’m not really sure what to do with the rest. I don’t really have a closet to devote to it. Any suggestions would be great! On a completely random note, the Tip Junkie has a tutorial for a burlap wreath today. :)

  7. Traci – Love it. What a great job. It looks so organized now. What did you end up doing with all your books you had to keep? Love the peg board idea.

  8. Traci

    FANTASTIC JOB!!!!! You have inspired me. Hmmm, which closet? My craft closet or my master closet

    Thanks for the inspiration and motivation!!!

    Marilyn C.

  9. New to your blog. Over from Knock off Decor (found it today too). This is awesome! Love the makeover. I am now a follower. Love the pegboard…I think I may have to borrow this idea for my Kitchen closet. Thanks! Off to check out the rest of your blog!

  10. Wow! That is such an impressive make-over! I sure could use your talents over at my place. I’ve got three rather large closets that could use your magic touch!

    Loving your blog, and am your newest follower!

    Kimberly

  11. Wow! Your closet looks great! You have given me the inspiration to get my craft/office whipped into shape! I want mine to feel as clean and fresh as yours does. Great job!

  12. This is so great! I saw this link in twitter and glad I popped over! I’m gathering posts for a series I’m working on called “Get Organized already” and I would love to feature your post! If you are willing to let me feature your entire post and include your link and invite back to your site let me know! This is fantastic!

  13. Love the idea of the pegboard on the back of the door. So much better. Organization is so important for us creative people. Gotsa know where our stuff is!

  14. wow. I would just love to have a craft closet! that would be handy!!!

    I am going to be redoing my son’s diaper changing table area. since he is 5 and all……..

    sigh.

  15. Thanks for the GREAT inspiration. Contemplating my organizing project right now with a cup of tea. P.S. My mom is my heart’s inspiration too ( – :
    May 12, 1934 – June 12, 1984

  16. It is really difficult to let go of things that have been collected through the years, especially if it has sentimental value related to personal stuff. However, organizing is one good way of sorting the items that need to be let go of and those that can stay a bit longer and this post is a clear example of that.

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