We're Expanding!

... My closet, that is. (You thought I was going to say "our family", didn't you?!)

As you saw at the end of this post, one Saturday night Evan spontaneously decided to demo my closet. We had talked about expanding the opening to both of our closets since we moved in a year and a half ago, but we didn't decide on a timeline, nor did we talk logistics (like where we'd put my clothes during this dusty project and where we'd sleep!). So this spontaneous project turned into quite the adventure. But we aren't novices when it comes to being uprooted by a house project. In fact, our entire bathroom re-haul began Superbowl night 2010 when we decided to see what happened if we started ripping up our old peeling laminate tiles. As you can imagine, we didn't necessarily plan on living like this for a while:

Yea, those shoes are stuck in place. But that's a story for another day. I got sidetracked. Back to the closet!

After Evan tore down all of the trim, my closet looked like this:

And our bed looked like this:

Which is when we realized we wouldn't be sleeping in our bed until all of my clothes found their home back into the finished closet. We honestly didn't think the project would take that long, but when you start tearing down drywall on Sunday at the tail end of spring break, you are setting yourself up for a week on air-mattresses upstairs. The good news is we had fun with a change of sleeping-scenery and discovered that one of our air mattresses has a hole in it. (Wait, did I say good news?)

Here's Evan with his Sawsall, ready to cut through some sheetrock

Phone consultation with his dad. I think the problem had something to do with cutting through the baseboard. We ended up making a quick Craigslist purchase and are now the happy owners of a dremmel (and about 500 attachments we'll never use!)

They were having some trouble cutting out the header and were hoping to manage the task without ruining the sheetrock.

But to no avail ; ) Looks pretty nice with that new support beam!

Evan got to work on his sheet-rocking, taping, and mudding skills!

Pops knows best!

It's typically a good idea to cover up the flooring before you start a project that involves dropping wood splinters and drywall ...

This is what my living situation looked like after about five days. I think half of my clothes had migrated to a living room chair, some items were strewn about in the office, and the rest were a big tangle of hangers, sweaters, and sheets! Suffice it to say I was ready for this project to be done.

Shadow time! Evan gets to work nailing in the new door jamb

It might not look like the largest closet to you, but check out the flooring on the left of the doorway that used to be filled in with sheetrock ...  yea, this doorway feels HUGE to me! 

Wondering how we decided on this seemingly arbitrary size? We had considered making the doorway even bigger, but then thought about future home-owners who may not dig the whole shower-curtain look. So we did a little research and decided to make the opening a standard size to fit a bi-fold door. That way when it's time to pack up and move we can just pop on a door and away we'll go!

I forgot to take pictures as Evan nailed up the old trim. But here's the almost-finished product, with my new curtain reinstated!

And open. That's just primer you see above the door, waiting for a fresh coat of Behr's Tuscan Beige. And the trim is also primed but will soon be a fresh, crisp white. Notice how I strategically placed my slippers? 

They're covering up this eyesore until we buy wood to fill er in.

I love walking into the room without a closet door cutting into the space!

Let's look at the before and almost-after one more time:

itty, bitty, tiny entrance, door ajar and clothes belching in your face (honestly, that's how I felt!)

Now my clothes are nicely tucked away behind that fun patterned curtain that can easily be flung open thanks to shower hooks!

(can't wait to finish her off with some paint!)

Ahh, much better : )