Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Hall Linen Closet

Hello friends!

We are still organizing here at downsized Casa Fanatic.
When we viewed our home for the first time, guess which space/spaces we were most excited about? 

It wasn't because the Dining Room was huge or the Master Bath has a big tub. It wasn't even for the large Family Room.  
We were so excited when we viewed this house because there were 3 hall closets and a Master Bath linen closet. We were downsizing and we needed storage space. 


I was so excited about the 4 hall closets that I took photos of them. This is how the Hall Closet looked when we viewed the house. Even though it was larger than the 2nd linen closet we had at our old house, what I didn't notice is that is that it only had 4 shelves. 


So, Mr. DIY headed off to the big box store and purchased one shelf. We had originally thought we'd use the 16" deep wire shelving  that we took out of our Master Bath linen closet, but we couldn't do that since this closet was a few inches wider.
Bummer.

He added one shelf to the top...

...and one shelf at the bottom.


Perfect!
Since we already had brackets left over from other wire shelves we took out, we spent less than $20.



I've been working on hemming some Ikea Ritva curtain panels. They only come in 96" and 118" and we need 101.


 Our porch furniture is still in that last 15 ft trailer/pod in storage, but Mr. DIY wanted more comfortable seating than the bench we have, so he brought home a few chairs from Ikea. Mr. DIY has made many  trips to Ikea the last few weeks.

He purchased some Sektion cabinets for the garage in anticipation of the 15 foot trailer/pod in storage which is storing most of our garage items. These are going to look great once they are all finished and the doors are on. Mr. DIY says he is going to have a clean garage at this house. Can't wait.

Fall is almost here, but the few Fall decorations that we have are in that last 15 foot trailer, so I'm a little glad(not too much though) that it's still too warm in my book, for Fall decorations.

If you missed the other 3 closets (and the pantry) you can see them here:




Happy Organizing!!!

Pam

Monday, August 22, 2016

Organizing The Pantries

This isn't a pretty pantry makeover where we spent lots of money.
Let me tell you right now that moving and downsizing, costs a LOT of money.
How many of us have unlimited funds to spend?
We're not raising our hand here at Casa Fanatic. 
This post should be renamed Organizing: Making Use Of What You Have And Spending As Little Money As Possible, but that name was too long.

There are so many projects here to get the place organized, not to mention decorated, so my goal is to get the house to where it works for us without breaking the bank.

Let me show you what the challenge was....
We were trying to get everything in this (pantry continues to the angle on the left and then to the right about 2 feet)
Brian Stogner


To fit into this:

FOUR 12" wire shelves that are 3 feet wide(full depth), then angled on both sides to 54"wide. To make matters worse, the shelves were held up by shelf support brackets that didn't allow for stacking.

When I was complaining mentioning how I have less pantry space than in our last house, Mr. DIY said we had more pantry space at our 966 sq. ft Mountain Cottage!
Yeah, that didn't help.
You can see the Vintage Style Pantry at the Mountain Cottage by clicking HERE.

I was really stressing  as there were about 8 large boxes of pantry items that had been packed from my 7 foot wide pantry with 16" deep shelves.(we also had a corner cabinet - wall and base, that held pantry items) 

Knowing we were going to a 3 foot wide pantry with 12" shelving,  before we moved, I pared down things that I didn't use and that were stored on both  sides of the pantry returns.
You can see how I organized our previous pantry HERE.


Back to our new pantry:
We used the existing wire shelving, and Mr. DIY added 2 more wire shelves that had been taken out of the laundry room. He purchased 2, vertical shelf supports so that items could be stacked. (the shelf supports were $15 each)


First thing I did was utilize the existing storage on the door.

Then, every inch of the angles were used. Command Hooks were used to hang the aprons and plastic grocery bag dispenser. 

These hooks have been a lifesaver in several places around the house. I love that they can be temporary- If I don't like where I've put something, it can be changed without filling holes and touching up with paint.

One good thing about wire shelving is that you can see what's above.









There, it is....Not perfect, but not bad for $30.



Ok, so I didn't get all the 8 boxes of pantry items in the pantry, but I did get all the food and paper goods in.
That left all the small appliances, candles, plastic utensils, baking supplies, cookie cutters, etc left to store.

Mr. DIY had a GREAT idea. There was a 2nd coat closet in the hall just outside the kitchen.

This closet cost a bit more because he purchased adjustable melamine panels and 16" deep shelves. 

 Baking items...


Small appliances...


See through containers of candles, plastic utensils and some other things we really should use up...


I discovered that Mr. DIY added a 12" shelf wayyyyyy up top. After I took the pics, I moved some rarely used items up there, which freed up more space for cookbooks on the shelves.



Lots of adjustable shelves are a beautiful thing!

The two pantries together give me about 83 inches( I count the angled sides of the food pantry as half); which gives me about the same space I had in my pantry at the old house. Now to work on the 6 ft less of cabinets I'm missing in this house!

Is there somewhere in your house that could use more space?

Pam

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Vignettes Around The House


 We've been busy around the new Casa Fanatic!!!

No major transformations yet, but they're  coming. 
Last week 99% of the delivered boxes had been unpacked, shelves added to storage closets and it was time to start making things pretty. I LOVE organizing, but it's a lot more fun when the house is decorated. Plus decorating makes a house feel like home.

I can honestly say things were a little more cheerful once the artwork was put on the walls. There also wasn't a single curtain rod in the place - just plain white blinds against boring plain walls.
The framed chalkboard had come apart in the move, so Mr. DIY put it back together and then put it up on the Foyer dresser. 





The Dining Room was the first room to be unpacked and somewhat put together. 


We still need to put up some curtain rods and draperies. We brought the custom draperies I made for the last house, but they were made for one big window, so I have to divide them into two.

I'm searching for a new chandelier and possibly a server and as I'm looking at these photos, I'm thinking that this artwork might look better in the breakfast area. 


Mr. DIY purchased some Ikea Hemnes bookcases for our office and I filled them up fast. They were larger than our previous bookcases (taller ceiling than the last office) and gave us 2 extra shelves. The extra space was used to hold books that had been stored in the armoires that were in the Family Room at the last house. We're using the armoires in the office in this house, so there isn't any storage in the Family Room until Mr. DIY has time to build a custom entertainment center. 

The lower shelf is one of my favorites as it holds some of our girls artwork they made in school. 


Our youngest daughter's room is decorated nicely and



  it's already been painted a new color. She still has artwork to hang and we'll be trading out her wire closet for a semi-custom one in another month or so. 



You saw this photo last time, but I had to include it. The curtains are too short so we have to purchase new ones at Ikea, but until then, these dress up the place, along with my grandmother's antique mirror. This mirror hung over my parent's fireplace and now it's displayed prominently  over our Family Room fireplace.

There's still so much that has to be done so we do a little bit every day. 
Next big project: Mr. DIY will be working on installing a wall of garage cabinets first so we can have the last trailer/pod of storage, garage items and miscellaneous furniture delivered. Can't wait for that! 
I miss our porch furniture and a couple of chairs that were put in that last trailer.

Hope you're enjoying these last days of summer. I'm looking forward to cooler days and night. 

Hope today is a good day for you,

Pam




Monday, August 15, 2016

Transforming A Coat Closet

Hello friends!

Hope you're enjoying the last days of summer.
Here in the South, we have about 6 weeks of unrelenting heat and humidity. It won't be long now until the days start to cool off. Mr. DIY is still working hard on the closets so that we can be more organized.
A few posts ago, I showed you how he transformed the linen closet in the Master Bath.
If you missed it, you can see it HERE.

The closet I'm sharing today is the coat closet in the little hallway that leads to the Master Bedroom.


When we toured the house for the first time, the owners used this closet for linens.


The closet only had space for hanging and one wire shelf. This wasn't going to work for us since we needed more shelving so the games, cd's, etc. that we stored in the armoires in our previous home. If you remember, we moved both armoires to the new Office/Craft room since that room doesn't have a closet and because the new Family Room is configured differently and they wouldn't work with the layout. I figured that if the hanging rod was lowered a few inches, 3 shelves could be installed to provide a lot of much needed storage space. 


The wire shelf was easy enough to demo and the holes were patched. We'll get around to painting another time. I was getting weary of boxes everywhere.


Mr. DIY installed two-16" fixed melamine shelves and one-12" shelf. It was enough to hold all of the games, cds and some miscellaneous items


I even have a little space left on that 3rd shelf. (Mr. DIY cut two 12" shelves in case I wanted to change the middle 16" shelf to 12". He just stored it on top of the other 12" shelf)


Even though the shelves aren't adjustable, the new closet is perfect!

This past weekend we started putting up artwork, mirrors and Mr. DIY installed some curtain rods.
It's beginning to feel a lot more like home. Here are a few peeks:

I set up the framed chalkboard on the little dresser in the Foyer just like our last house.

Hope you're week is off to a good start! This week we'll be working on closet, doing some organizing, selling a few unwanted items and making our new house feel like home.

Hope today is a good day for you,

Pam