Tales of the Brick Beauty: Closet Reno

Here is a peek into the 1st finished bedroom (yay!) and our 1st cool story about our 120 year old beaut.

This room is the smallest bedroom, and has an oddly large closet with different flooring within. Below the closet on the first floor is the laundry. There is a small square window above the built-ins in the laundry room that seems would've been in a stairway.

Based on these "clues", we believe this room used to be the maid's quarters and the house used to have a separate back staircase. I wish so badly it was still there (but I am thankful for 1st floor laundry...) This is one of the reasons I love old houses - so much character and stories to be shared.

This room has wallpaper (of course). It is not in the best condition, but it's not hideous or overwhelming, so it falls on the to-do someday list. I have re-prioritized our list seeing as the wedding is 24 days away and we'll be living in it so soon!

Check out the before - stocked with random items I scored from the estate sale from the previous owner, some ugly curtains, and a large closet with tons of unused space.

My plan for this room is to be used as overflow for guests and my "primp" room. My typical day begins at least an hour before Luke, so it will be convenient for both of us if I have a space to get ready outside of our master bedroom. It is an eclectic space, filled with hand-me-downs, garage sale steals, and Goodwill finds.

Coffee mug holder - repurposed to hold jewelry

Same plan - with painted wine bottles

Our elegant radiators - they add instant character to every room

Poor lighting - thanks to my iPhone

Candlesticks - coming soon

Love the details of this fun piece

Pictures of my grandma, Cecelia Kersten - my inspiration for everything

Norman Rockwell is my favorite. Such an appropriate piece for this room!

[Goodwill or garage sale find - can't remember which]

Closet - before

OK - here comes the fun part. Like I said earlier, the closet in this room was huge, but had tons of unused space. We transformed the unused space into every girl's dream walk-in closet - and for less than $40! I can't take credit for this project though - I made the trips to Menards and my brother did the rest! I talked him into helping us with this project (and maybe a few more.. ;) Lucky him, he inherited my Grandpa Herb's ability to work with wood and my Grandpa Pat's handiness-with-just-about-anything. I'll do my best to explain the process seeing as I was not a huge part of it...

First, I looked into buying a white metal closet rack with a shelf, but by the time you buy the shelf, hardware, brackets, etc., it cost $70 for the two racks I wanted to put in. That may not seem like a lot, but when you have a zillion other projects going, cutting corners is necessary.

After having a family discussion over the closet issue, we decided the alternative cheaper route would be to buy the following:

- PVC pipe (less than $5)

- Brackets ($3-5 each)

- White board (less than $10)

The key when buying the PVC pipe is to make sure the dimension of the pipe will fit into your bracket. We went with PVC pipe instead of a closet rod to save $$$$. Not a huge price difference, but every penny counts. We (when I say we, I mean Jack) hung the brackets first, spacing them appropriately based on how much weight each bracket can hold. The type of bracket you buy will indicate how much space should be in between each bracket. Then he measured and cut the PVC pipe and secured it to the brackets with screws to avoid movement. Last, he measured and cut the board - also securing it with screws to the brackets. Note: check the length of screw to make sure it's not longer than the depth of the board. This might be an obvious thing to experienced peeps, but I would've made that rookie mistake had I been doing this alone. One thing we haven't done, but plan to do, is add rubber stoppers to the end of the PVC pipe so hangers won't fall off. Minor detail, but with every day use it will be nice to have.