Spicing Up A Closet

August 30 2012,

After painting the closet doors, I (not we), decided to rip down the interior of the yellow door room closet. I forgot to take a full picture of what the closet looked like before I ripped it down, but I did take pictures of the different section of the closet just in case we decided to put back the wooden shelving.

While hubby was getting his pool tip changed, I ripped down the closet. This included two layers of MDF board which exposed many holes in the wall.

Below is the before demolition picture.

I then fixed the holes in the walls by using joint compound, also known as mudding. After approximately 5 layers of mudding, including drying time, the wall was flat.

Below is the picture after mudding. Note that the walls in the room look pink in this picture, but the real color is whitish gray.

Next I sanded the closet walls with an electric sander. It was a very messy job. Luckily the room was already covered with tarps on the floor. All I had to do was cover the boxes which were never unpacked from moving in 2 years ago. I threw bed sheets and large plastic covers over them.

After sanding I mudded again, and then sanded again.

Next the closet got primed and painted. The inside closet color is "Soft Chamois" from Royal Paint (Ace Hardware brand). This color is the same as most of the wall colors in the house.

After four trips to a large box hardware store, and spending approximately $150.00 on shelves, and five days later, below is the end result.

It took 5 days because of the drying time for the mud and for the dust to settle down after sanding. We bought a new sander that will catch the dust, so our next project will be less messy.

Lesson learnt from this project: Make sure the mud is fully dry before sanding, because it will shrink making the walls uneven and needing more mud and more sanding.

There are some areas where the wall is not completely flat. Because we will have stuff on the shelves, no one will ever see it, except for the next owners who will probably say, "What were they thinking?"

If you have been following the progress of this house, we seem to do things backwards. First we did the closet doors, then the interior of the closet. It should have been the other way around. At least it's done right?

The only thing left with this closet is the pull cord for the light. Stay tuned for the result of that!

Now go start and finish a project. If I can do it, you can definitely do it too!

Quilt & Bitch