How To Store Your Stuff - Closet Edition

Hello Friends!

This is How To Store Your Stuff - Closet Edition

I have a simple solution to adding more space to your closet. 

The closet in our Mountain House downstairs bedroom is only 19" deep.. 

That's a problem because 24" is the depth space you need to hang clothes on a hanger. 

You may have minimal hanging space in your closet like we do and need  more space for clothing.

Mr. DIY added some super simple and relatively inexpensive shelving to add more storage space to our closet and you can too. 

Mr. DIY added something similar in the Master Closet at our previous house.

Link to this post will be at the end of this post. 

Several years ago, there were so many projects on the Mountain Cottage reno list, and we thought we would build a  custom closet at a later date, so we bought 2 bookcases from Ikea and set them in the middle of the closet. 

The problem was that they were too deep and blocked getting to the hanging items.

But, we lived with it for several years. 

Mr. DIY decided to make a platform for the bed in this room with them about 6 months ago and then we were left with no place to put folded items, since there isn't a dresser in the small room. 

We decided to save Mr. DIY's time and a little cash by foregoing the custom shelving and just installing simple shelves in the center.

They are awesome! We both couldn't believe how simple they were.

Why didn't we do this sooner?

Mr. DIY had already installed a few shelves and a closet rod for long items on the left side of the closet. I place the rod at 60" from the floor for long hang.

19" of long hang is plenty for a weekend home.

Here's you can see the shelf uprights and shelf standards in this photo.

We bought 11" deep shelves and brackets to fit.

On the right side of the closet, Mr. DIY installed 2 closet rods. The lower one is 40" from the floor and the higher one is 40" above that.

You can see that the 11" shelves make it easy to reach the hanging items.

If we had regular closet doors, instead of bifold doors, there would be even more space to reach in, but since we will be adding on a bathroom and proper closet in a few years, we won't be replacing them.

Now we just need some cute baskets to put socks, underwear and small items in.

Simple,  relatively inexpensive and functional.

A great way to add more space to your closet.

The cost for the 8 shelves was less than $200

2 - Shelf Upright - 72" each - $12.98 each = $25.96

2 - Shelf Brackets PER shelf - about $7 each -=$112

Shelf - 36" x 11.75" - about $7 each = $56

 

If you'd like to see how we added more storage space in the closet at ourlast house, you can see it by clicking HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pam

Mountain Cottage Update

*this post contains affiliate links

Well, hello friends! 

It's been a loooonnnnnnngggg time!

Just before Valentine's Day, to be exact. 

So much has happened since then. Are you still hanging in there?

Mr. DIY and I are doing fine. He's still working and I'm even designing some kitchens long distance! So that's new.

And....our daughter had an elopement in the middle of a pandemic.

Yep, she sure did. We flew to SoCal and joined them. We haven't been sick at all. 

Maybe I'll share some photos of the elopement next time. Everything was so beautiful.

Before flying across the country, Mr. DIY and I spent a week at our mountain cottage. The weather was still a little cool in the morning, but it was gorgeous, even though we had a couple of rain storms. 

We enjoyed our view:

Here's the view standing in front of the workshop. Still pretty!

The two azalea bushes on the view side were in full bloom. 

Mr. DIY was able to finally get out the roots from the holly bushes that graced the side of our house.  We chopped them down to the ground several years ago, but weren't able to pull the roots out at that time. Mr. DIY pulled several roots out on the view porch side, but there never seemed to have enough time to pull the last 6 out. 

So glad they are out as the sharp pointy leaves are nasty and we are glad to be rid of them. 

I spent a lot of time sitting on the view porch in between video calls for kitchen design, lots of house cleaning (I hadn't been there since October) and little projects. 

I realized, I've never shared with you the view porch/deck reno after photo from down on the lawn. 

Our cottage looked like this BEFORE:

And here's the AFTER. 

It's really not the after after. Maybe the in progress pic. We sealed the cedar posts, but plan to stain it. We though we would like them with a clear finish, but alas, we don't, so maybe we'll stain them next Fall or Spring.

We also have plans to paint the house on the view porch so it isn't so dark and we plan to paint the porch ceiling an off white color to brighten things up. 

Last week, Mr. DIY installed an outdoor ceiling fan on the view porch. 

Can't tell you how much I love the look of the stairs now.

In a year or so we also have plans to paint the outside of the house. It will take me that long to pick a color! 

The color will be green again, but not quite so dark. The trim will be an ivory, instead of another shade of green.

Here's the before again:

...and here's the after.

If you missed the view porch deck being built, you will find it HERE. 

Thanks for stopping by, 

Pam

*this post contains affiliate links, which means I'll make a small commission should you purchase something from one of the links.

Fall At The Mountain Cottage 2016

Mr. DIY and I went up to the mountain cottage last weekend to work on the kitchen reno. We've been so busy getting our house organized and working on projects that we haven't had any time to work on it. I hadn't been up there since we spent 2 weeks living there between closings back in July. I was afraid I had missed Fall. 

We drove there by way of Boone since Mr. DIY had an appointment there and almost all the Fall colors were gone. I knew we'd have some left since Boone is at a much higher elevation and I was relieved when we arrived to this beautiful view!

Nights have turned a little nippy here in the North Carolina mountains, which makes for really good sleeping weather. I added another blanket and the big puffy comforter  to the attic bedroom, which made for a cozy bed.

This room has come a long way since we first moved in. You can see the whole room HERE.

Remember, we stole some floor space to build a Closet.

The Storage Shelves/built in bookcase in the Attic Bedroom is still more than sufficient.

Nothing much has changed in the attic bedroom or the World's Smallest Halfbath... 

Before we moved from our last house, we brought up my grandmother's chair for the attic bedroom since we needed a chair in the room and didn't have space it at the new house. I still want to paint the wood and have it reupholstered.

No renovations have been done in the living room and we're using the Pottery Barn wicker outdoor seating as a sofa with a twin matelasse cover thrown over it. 

We have a vintage buffet we found a couple of years ago, which a tv will eventually be set above. Our daughter didn't have room for the shuttered mirror in her new room, so I brought it up to the mountain cottage.  The lamps were previously in our basement.

We're still loving the Vintage Style Pantry in the kitchen. Building this first saved us a lot of grief during the kitchen reno while we were without cabinets.

By the time we go back to the mountain cottage, all this beautiful Fall color will be gone.

I'm not ready to show you the kitchen just yet, but I will leave you with a little peek of what we've been working on... 

I'm sure we won't finish the kitchen before Winter arrives because we still have several projects to do. At least the kitchen is functional and I am grateful for that!

Hope you are enjoying Fall at your house and I'm so glad you stopped by for our Fall Mountain Cottage Update. 

Pam

OUR MOUNTAIN COTTAGE RETREAT, ONE YEAR UPDATE

It's hard to believe that we've had a whole year of enjoying the beautiful view on the porch at our mountain cottage. Time has flown by so quickly. We've learned a few lessons in the past year about having a house in the mountains and all the trials and tribulations (and blessings) of  owning a house in a truly rural setting.
A year ago this week, we set out to transform a tiny little mountain cottage into a lovely little retreat.

What's it really like to own a second home retreat?

Well, today, I'm going to show you the good and the bad- the pretty and the downright ugly. 
I'm going to keep it real and show you that owning a 2nd piece of property  isn't always easy.
We haven't accomplished as much as we would have liked, but things take more time when the house is two hours away, you can only visit on half of your weekends, do nearly everything yourselves and have a pretty small budget.
Having said that, we've worked on quite a few projects, which I would like to share with you today.

The view from the back porch where we take our breaks and where Mr. DIY and I share meals when the weather is nice.
We never tire of the scenery and our view of the Blue Ridge Parkway makes it worth every sore muscle.

Mountain Cottage Update...In The Midst Of It All

Good Saturday to everyone!

It has been a long week for us, how about you?

Mr. DIY and arrived at the Mountain Cottage on Monday afternoon and have been working hard. 

...and yet,

I don't have any pretty pictures to show you.

Oh, I have taken quite a few photos, but they are definitely not pretty. 

We are in the midst of a 

BIG.HORRIBLE.MESS.

I was feeling pretty discouraged and very small and inadequate  about all the projects that have to be done here. Then,  in the middle of the week, a Facebook friend posted this jewel: 

"It always seems impossible until its done"

Nelson Mandela

Yup, pretty much sums it up.

Then, I woke up this morning to this:

...and suddenly those big piles of brush and all those big logs that have to be moved and two more trees that need to be cut up and finishing the upstairs bath and remodeling the kitchen and ripping out the downstairs bath and redoing the laundry room and the entrance and the living room and, and, and...

....didn't seems so overwhelming. 

Those big logs, and a whole bunch more, pale in comparison to the big picture. 

literally.

So, to make me feel better I must make a list of the things we did:

Driveway is graded and fresh gravel put down thanks to Matt at Trax Grading(I'll share what was done another time)

Pine saplings and small trees along the edge of the woods cut down with my new pole saw (more on that another time)

Dead trees and other trees cut down so we can plant some fruit trees.

Upstairs bath passed inspection (YAY!)

Upstairs bath sheetrocked (and hopefully mudded today)

Met our neighbor who invited us to hear his bluegrass band play in town. (was a lot of fun)

Met with the well guy

Met with the septic guy and verified where our septic tank and field is (very important for planning!)

That's what we accomplished Tuesday through today.

Guess I also need to remember the scripture verse I reminded myself of every day when my girls were little and I was feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of raising kids to 18...

Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we 
DO NOT GIVE UP! 
(emphasis mine) Galations 6:9

If you're feeling a little overwhelmed today in the midst of a big project, just take a deep breath and recite the above quote and verse a time or two.

Can't wait to show you some pretty pics of the inside when the bathroom gets finished!

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Pam

PS: follow me on Instagram for behind the scenes updates on the Mountain Cottage and other DIY projects.

A Short Weekend At The Cottage

I know, I know, we've been going to the Cottage a lot. 

We've been workin' hard and I have pretty much missed posting about a lot of Fall decorating....
because I haven't done much.
because of all our trips to the Cottage. 

In my defense, I did post about my Fall Mantel, a Fall Vignette in the Foyer and a Fall tablescape.

(just in case you missed them)
I've decided to just skip over Fall decorating this year and head right on over to Christmas. 

But first,
I have to give you another Cottage update. 
 Last weekend ( a week ago) we went up to the mountains even though we only had 24 hours to spend there.
We brought up a whole bunch of stackable bricks that were given to us by our next door neighbors. 
I LOVE free stuff, don't you? 
Mr. Fanatic and I stacked them all up to temporarily make a fire pit so that we can burn things that we would otherwise have to take back home or to the dump.

We tried out our new Lodge cast iron grill and had made some really tasty burgers. We only had a plastic spatula, so what does a diyer use to turn the burgers?
 A metal paint scraper of course!

In our short visit, we also made a trip to Lowe's to purchase supplies to frame the bathroom we are putting in the upstairs bedroom. It's a good thing that Lowe's is only 20 minutes away from the mountain cottage. If you haven't guessed, we go there A LOT!

Mr. Fanatic even had time to  tear  the sheetrock off the closet...

Then, he tore out the framing. We are putting in a 1/2 bath which will be only a foot deeper than the closet. 

And that's where we finished up the weekend!

We still have so much work to do on the inside of the cottage, but I am definitely not complaining.

We are basically camping there, sleeping on air mattresses on the floor. They are quite comfortable because I bought 3" gel foam pads to go on them, which will go on the mattresses when we purchase them. 

We also brought a couple of outdoor folding chairs, an outdoor side table, a couple of lamps and our old, small dining room table from when we were first married.
That's all the "furniture" we have in the whole house. 

Mr. Fanatic says he feels like he's away at summer camp.  I agree. We both love the place.

It is a lot of work, though, but whenever we need a break, we go outside on the porch with the view and just take in all of God's gorgeous creation and remember how blessed we are.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Did you do anything fun or a diy project? 

Would love to hear about it.

Pam