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Renovating a house from the 70s in the South.

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Tying up loose ends

October 6, 2013

Before we get to the details of the bathroom reno, I wanted to tie up loose ends.

It seems like forever and a day ago that I talked about turning our hall closet into something a little more useful. To be fair, it’s only been about four and a half months…totally not that long ago (or maybe it is and I’m just trying to convince you otherwise). If you’ve been paying attention, you know that our hall closet used to look a hot mess – dark brown doors, scrap wood shelves, and filled to the brim with stuff the previous owners left behind.

HallClosetBefore

I knew that I wanted a mini-mudroom type set up with somewhere to hang coats/purses and a place to store shoes since our laundry room is so itty bitty. I was heavily inspired by this project over at Thrifty Decor Chick. It was exactly what I wanted so I followed her process and with only a minimal amount of curse words, I turned that old, dirty closet into a brand new nook (warning: crappy night time photo ahead!):

IMG_1229

The bench was actually super easy to build and I taught myself how to use the circ saw while Kyle was sick. Imagine lying in bed, sick, and hearing a loud noise and then wood clanging against the ground. You go downstairs and open the door to the garage to find your wife using a saw when she’s only ever used a drill (and really how much can you hurt yourself with one of those?). She has a psychotic glint in her eye – the power tools have taken over. She is a monster.

powertools

Ahem. Where were we? Oh yeah, basically just cut some 2x4s to create your bottom frame – screw into the studs and use brackets in the corners for extra support and then cover with plywood (if you aren’t keeping the bench open for storage then you probably don’t need the plywood).

Bench bottom

Then you do the same for the top frame. This is where you really want to make sure your frame is sturdy and anchored well because it’s where your butt will sit…and also where your 60lb lap dog will lie down. Luckily for me, those cleats are really, really secure so I rested my top frame on those and secured them all around.

jess in bench

I wasn’t too particular about the front of the frames because I knew I would cover any imperfections with trim. The most infuriating (and swear word inducing) part of this project was getting the plywood for the top of the bench cut appropriately. There was a lot of measure, cut, try to attach, yank out because it was still too big, cut, try to force in, s-word, f-word, a couple of b-words, and another f-word for good measure.

unfinished bench

Then we just made sure all of our seams were caulked and we gave the entire thing a coat of paint (sorry, don’t remember what. Just white Behr paint, I think).

closet

The next project was to build the box. We just grabbed some pre-cut wood at Lowe’s that would work for our measurements for the front and back, a 1×4 for corner support, and some plywood for the sides and bottom. We just kind of slapped it together with screws and liquid nails (and by we, I mean Kyle).

box

Add stain

stain box

Add fun pulls from World Market

drawer pulls

Done!

closetbeforeandafter

I love it but I feel like it needs something more. I tried painting yellow stripes to tie in the vanity from the bathroom but that was just a big ole fail all around. I left the old wall cleats on the sides of the closet because they were a huge pain in my butt when I tried removing them (and were a source of some of those curse words I mentioned before). I’m thinking about continuing the cleats around the back so that there’s not just a big blank wall (similar to the nook from Thrifty Decor Chick) but I’m not sure yet. I’m calling it done for now and it’s already been extremely useful…and we only pile junk there most times instead of all of the time (something we’re trying to get better at).

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the house on the hill blog
Southern made. Lover of animals. Married to a New Englander. Slowly renovating our 1970s home.
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