I’ve been tired and unproductive for the past few days, so I’m not sure what to write about today. But then I realized I actually *really* accomplished something this week! They’re not small, easy projects, either.
Well, maybe it’s the first one. My cross stitch! I’ve been working on this for what feels like forever, so I’m glad I got it done today. Then. As I started writing this post and editing the photos, I realized – wait – I forgot to outline and fill in the whiskers around the cat! So, technically, I haven’t finished it yet. But hopefully by the time this article goes live, it will be done. Anyway, here’s what it looks like (just imagine it with whiskers and a black outline around the cat):
I’m not very good with fonts – it’s harder than it looks! — but I think it’s readable.
The next project is long overdue. A while back (I think last summer?) I found a really nice solid oak bookshelf on the Facebook Marketplace. It is handmade and very well constructed. I planned to paint it at some point, but I never got around to it – I lugged it from the bathroom to the bedroom to the closet and back and forth.
In the end, I decided I was going to paint the damn thing and stop thinking of it as a catch-all in my closet. Over the course of a few days, I painted it white and moved it to the living room to play board games.
We stash our board games in coffee table drawers, the TV console, and a few other places, and I’m happy to have a spot on a shelf that complements the living room decor. (I had to move the collage of Jerry’s face above the shelf, but I wanted to do it anyway.) It took me a while to play everything Tetris there, but every one of our games fit!
In the end… I saved the best for last. My bathroom closet is done! It feels like it took five years instead of five months, but I’m running into problems everywhere (like I do with every project). It’s hard to believe there is a shower there. I love the look of the closet!
The space above the closet is a cat hole (like a man hole, just for cats! Hahaha, cats love it.) There is an entrance to the bedroom (I’ll post pics too when I’m done). The cat climbed up the shelf on the bedroom wall, from A hole in the wall goes into the top of the closet. I put it up with scratchy rugs (the kind cats love) with a cat bed on top. Ducks like to go up and watch me work. Phoebe was the only one who wasn’t interested. I think I need to make a ramp for her because she is fragile!
On the left, I managed to install two cross bars for clothes. I had no intention of doing this, but once I made the top one, I realized there was enough room for another. Since sweatshirts take up so much space in our bedroom closet (we fold everything instead of hanging it), we use this closet for our sweatshirts. It frees up a lot of space in our bedroom closet.
I still have to organize the toiletries and stuff in the suitcase, but you get the idea. The trash can is what’s left of our sweatshirts! We can only fit a few sweatshirts each, so by hanging our sweatshirts, we can use a lot of empty bins in our bathroom closet. I’m going to put towels on the top shelf – I just haven’t gotten around to doing that yet.
One of my regrets is that I didn’t plan better for the gift baskets. I’d like to have two baskets (for light and dark), but I’m not thinking about needing support legs in the corners of the shelf. The second basket won’t fit. So, I put it in the bathroom for now.
In the end, I haven’t decided whether to add double doors to the wardrobe. I bought one and fully planned to use it, but now that I see the closet, I think maybe I won’t. On the other hand, everything looks messy in the litter box, so it’s best to cover it up. But anyway, I love how the closet turned out – I have to admit I’m pretty impressed with making this one myself!
It’s a side-by-side thing when everything is ripped with the finished closet 🙂
Now, I’m basically left with all the cleanup – including bedrooms and bathrooms. I had to rearrange everything because it was scattered all over the house. And the dust – it would take me days to remove all the drywall dust in there. years, possibly!