OPAM - may 2008

At the beginning of the month I jumped on the Tara Whitney OPAM bus for a sweet ride - destination...complete one project a month.  I chose to work on our downstairs closet.  You can check out the beginning here. 

 

I started by painting the closet a very bright color.  I would never have been brave enough to use such a bold color on any of my walls in the house but in a closet I could manage it.  Besides the color makes me happy - in fact we now refer to the closet as my "happy closet"

I then found some shelves that I liked at Design Expo. The brand is Easy Track and as the name implies they were surprisingly easy.  Only with a few steps did I need Derek's help.

Here is the finished closet.  Well, almost finished...you'll see in some of the pictures that there are no shelves on the left hand side of the closet.  The 12 inch shelves were not in stock at Expo so I had order them (still waiting on their arrival)  So just imagine the shelves.

Are you loving my goodwill find?  Look at that sweet black typewriter blessing my happy closet with it's presence.  I fell in love with the typewriter when I saw it but couldn't really figure out a place for it.  When I started working on the closet I just knew it should go there. I open this closet numerous times a day to retrieve things and I smile every time I see this shiny black beauty with it's fabulous vintage keys.

So far here is what the shelves hold (from the bottom up)...

bottom basket - shoes (you know the ones that get kicked off the minute the kids walk in the door, the ones that stay in a pile in the front room because no one can be bothered with walking up a few stairs to put them in their bedroom closets)

bottom shelf - a container of stickers and home/family documents and info

next basket - tablecloth to cover the table for art projects, various types of paper for the kids to use for projects

crafty shelf - craft supplies galore for the kids (& mom) to use to create their masterpieces, green file box to hold said masterpieces

typewriter shelf - office supplies (this shelf is not completed as of yet - I am searching for some containers to hold other office goodies)

basket above typewriter - printer paper, computer books (photoshop, illustrator, etc), phone book

next shelf - sewing machine and supplies (shelf not complete)

top shelf - not complete but will hold ready to give gifts - visiting teaching gifts, presents for birthdays, etc.

The other shelves that aren't up yet will hold camera jive and I'm not sure what else

Love this little doo-hickey above.  We don't really need coat closets in Southern California but occasionally it might be nice to hang up a jacket or sweater.  The rod above pulls in or out and is the perfect spot to hang stuff from without taking  up room when we don't need it.  Thanks to the smart person who figured this out!

I love this shelf and all it's crafty goodness and I think my kids love it just as much.  I also think it has made me a more reasonable mom.  I used to hate when my kids wanted to do art projects because it seemed like such a big ordeal to pull all the craft supplies out and get them all cleaned up and put away (which usually ended up being my job)  Now, the kids can ask, I say yes and then they handle it all by themselves.  They pull it out, create and then always clean it all up and wonder of wonders - they always put everything back where it belongs.

I am so glad I found Tara's "one project a month" post - it was super motivating and I couldn't be happier with the results.  Now I just need to decide on June's project (especially since we are 5 days into the month)