A Little Closet Update

Here I am! Still kicking, though my drive to blog seems to have faded drastically. I think a lot of it has to do with my 2014 motto to simplify life. I've been enjoying the little moments with Halle these days. We finished her first round of swimming lessons together, we visit the library weekly, go for long walks with friends and the other day even enjoyed a nice lunch picnic! I've also focused a lot on sorting and organizing our home, and preparing much healthier meals for us.... and I even bake our own bread now! It's so nice and I've been feeling much happier and far more relaxed.

I am, however, hoping to get back on here and share what we'll be up to in the next little while - including our back garden plans and hopefully the built-ins in our dining room (we've been on the hunt for the right cabinets recently). In the meantime, I want to share a quick change we made in Halle's room recently.

I just felt like Halle's closet wasn't providing great storage for us. It had a lot of hanging space, but that big blank floor invited things to just get thrown down there, and the top shelf just collected items that were idly thrown down and then forgotten about. I knew we needed a better solution...

When I took that first photo I had already cleared out the floor space, so next I emptied that shelf and removed all of Halle's clothes. With everything out, it was as simple as B removing that wire shelf (that I was happy to say good-bye too... they seem to dominate our storage spaces in this house, and this is my first step to rid our home of them!).

Though I had originally hoped to find an IKEA Expedit for cheap to center in the closet, we found something even better. The open Hemnes Bookshelf from our old entertainment unit had found a home in our front hall a while ago, and was just collecting items that didn't have a proper home. The other week I realized it would be the perfect solution to add some extra storage to Halle's room. Along with some brackets (to anchor the bookshelf to the wall) and some closet rods from Home Depot, Halle's closet now has some better storage than before...

Overall, we haven't gained more hanging space, but I wasn't looking to add hanging space (we had more than enough). What this new configuration allows us, is an easier way to organize her hanging clothes, plus find better homes for the items that had previously just been tossed into the closet. We are working on potty training at the moment, so I expect that we should free up another shelf and a half soon and it will be a good spot for some extra toys, shoes, etc.

The top shelves currently home some special books that I don't want her touching without our supervision (like my Beatrix Potter books), and some special teddy bears that are also not every day toys, but my parents had gifted to me when I was younger.

We never did paint the interior of her closet, but down the line we are positive the carpet in here will be ripped out - so we could always paint the closet at the same time. 

This was a nice little project to get us moving again! Our biggest upcoming project will surely be our back garden. Halle helped B to plant all of the seeds in started trays and we have a number of sprouts coming up for our tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers! We're excited to see how this progresses!

What projects have you been working on recently? Or what do you need to get moving on now that spring has sprung? (Well, it's sprung out west at least!)