While on my little organizational rampage, I decide that our coat closet was a huge waste of space. We didn’t really hang coats in it, it was mostly wrapping paper and gift bag storage, and held my seasonal wreaths and door hangers. It needed some help!
I don’t have a before photo- but it was a MESS! It was your typical coat closet with only the top shelf existing and all of our gift bags and wrapping storage shoved underneath.
So, first thing was to create more storage space. We headed to Lowe’s and purchased 12ft of the wire shelving for $17. I had already measured the length of the existing shelf, so Lowe’s cut the 12ft into three 32 inch pieces for free, and then gave me the remainder, which we plan to use in our office closet.
Here is the finished product! I LOVE this transformation and it has made my living room storage and organization so much easier! Because I removed the hanging storage, I brought a small over-the-door hanger from another room to use for my holiday door hangers.
I moved my knitting items (shoved in the top of my master closet) and all of my candles and candle tools (cleaning, tealights, etc.) from the floor of my linen closet to this storage closet- a much more appropriate place for both.
I also kept two baskets for small holiday items that I forget to put into the big storage bins, for now they happen to be Christmas and Easter. E now has all of her coloring and outdoor play items (bubbles and sidewalk chalk) in a basket as well. Easy access on our way outside. The blue album is a magnetic storage album that I plan on using for photo cards, the plastic container has all of our travel dvd equipment, and the brown box is all of my homemade cards!
In addition we moved all of our Blu-rays that used to be in our entertainment center to the storage basket and put all of our Wii games and E’s Einstein and Yo Gabba Gabba movies in the black cd case for easy storage.
And at the bottom- gift wrap storage! I hardly ever wrap presents, unless it’s Christmas. So I needed a better way to store my bags- shoving them all in one big bag wasn’t working anymore!
I decided to use magazine storage boxes, but didn’t have any extra and didn’t really want to go buy any. I had just received a bunch of these flat rate mail boxes so I used a magazine storage box to trace and outline. Then I just used a box knife to cut them into the shape I wanted and stored them by categories- Plain, Birthday, Baby/Wedding and Christmas.
I put all of my spooled ribbon in one of the green baskets, and the tissue paper and loose or reusable ribbon in the plastic containers. I used the same method as above and cut a large diaper box to store all of my big bags that wouldn’t fit into the mail sized boxes.
Cost:
$17 for the wire shelving
Probably another $20 or so in all of the parts and pieces to hang the shelving
$0.99 for each of the green baskets for The 99 Cent Only Store (left over from my pantry overhaul)
$5.98 for all the plastic lidded containers at Target
FREE Boxes for the gift wrap storage
FREE two wooden basket I reused from other rooms in my home
Still to do:
Label everything- I want to do this in a pretty white vinyl label so I can use wet/dry erase markers on them.
Wrap the gift wrap boxes in prettier paper
Post another photo of the real finished product.
That’s it! I still have my master closet makeover to show you and hopefully the office, if it ever gets done!
Thanks for stopping by!
Linking up here:
This is amazing, Stephanie! I love the transformation and how functional it is for you now! I love reading the I Heart Organizing blog (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a blog I think you would really appreciate!) and this looks like something that should be featured on there! 🙂
Wow – so inspirational. Especially the gift wrap in postal boxes. I’m pinning this to my to TO DO board so I remember!!
Looks so good! I wish I was creative at being organized. This inspires me to go through our house and re-do everything! 🙂 Thanks for sharing your techniques.
It looks fantastic, Stephanie! Thanks for linking up to Simply Sensational! 🙂
I can’t wait for the master closet reveal! I am contemplating doing this to my hall closet upstairs since we keep our coats primarily downstairs… it looks great!
Holy moly, you’ve just given me some great ideas for our completely unused cost closet! You did a wonderful job yet again my friend!
ps my blog has moved! Confessions of a Magnolia Mom is now officially The View From 510! I hope you’ll add our new domain to your feed and continue to follow along 🙂 http://www.theviewfromfiveten.com
Wow! I love it! I am so impressed and inspired by the gift bag boxes made from old boxes! Such a great way to reuse and so functional! I want to do this! Thanks for the ideas and the inspiration!
I need to do this…you did a great job…I have a closet that you can come tackle 🙂
Love it! And, I LOVE how you took flat rate boxes and made them into magazine holders!!!!
Great job! I so want to do this in one of our closets, too. Nice!!!
Looks great! I especially love the way you organized your gift bags. I need to do that. I love how seeing other people’s organization motivates me – thank you!
You have some great ideas that I plan on stealing 🙂 I did a big closet overhaul a few months back, but all of them are already getting out of hand again. Thanks for the inspiration!
Oh this totally appeals to the organizer freak in me! It’s all so neat, love!
You are on such a roll Steph! Can you please bottle up some motivation and send it in my general direction? 😉 Looks great! And I’m all for making a space that was just a waste, into something so functional!
That is seriously impressive… and thats such a better use of space!
Hey Stephanie, could you post or send me a picture of the diaper box from the side. I want to replicate it and see where I need to cut it. Thanks!
Hi Stephanie! Looks great! What size boxes did you use?