The start of my Master Closet Reorganization

When we first moved into our house three years ago, many things were not yet finished.  We did most of the interior work ourselves, so closets were not on the top of our priority list.  Things like painting, floors, gravel for the driveway so we didn't get stuck in the mud every time it rained, were "must-do's" for us.  The poor closets were just afterthoughts.

For a few months, we didn't even have rods to hang clothes from.  It was really a mess, with piles of clothes laying everywhere.  Eventually, Marty hung one long rod in our closet, and everyone's clothes were put in there.  And when I say "everyone", I mean mine, Marty's, Chelsea's and Jameson's clothes were all hung on that one, long rod.  That worked for a while, but it quickly became way too many clothes to put in that small space.  So soon thereafter, we put rods in the kid's closets and moved their things to their rooms. 

(The kid's closets are other TOUGH projects for another year day!)

Since money has been so tight, we haven't bought bedroom furniture for our room.  We have a few unmatched pieces, but nothing really substantial.  Because of this, we don't have any drawers to put our folded things in.  All of these things are currently piled in laundry baskets, sitting in the floor of our closet. We've lived with this arrangement for the past 2 1/2 years.  It's not pretty, but it's semi-functional.

Our master closet is also the catch-all for all of the other things in this house, since we have ZERO closets in this house, except for in the bedrooms. (Yeah, really dumb to build a house with NO closets....will know better next time!)

This year, we have decided to focus a lot of our energy on finishing several projects around the house.  Our master closet is just one of these projects.

We had planned on just putting a dresser inside the closet, and getting rid of the laundry baskets....

but that wouldn't be pretty.....

So we have been trying to think of what else we could do.

I've been scouring the Internet, looking for great looking closets, but most of the one's I found just really won't work in the space we have.  Our closet is good sized, but the width and door placement makes it difficult to have something on both sides.

We thought we were just stuck with using one wall, until our Friday trip to this place...

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I went, but let me just say, I was amazed at all the things they had.

I won't say my trip was the best experience I ever had....one way in, and one way out, almost passing out because of low blood sugar, lack of customer service to answer questions, lack of stock on some central items needed....but we did manage to find a fantastic solution for our closet!

Hubby spent his entire Saturday putting everything together and installing it.

I love my man!

OK, so now for the pictures.  I totally cannot believe I am posting these.  To say I am embarrassed is an understatement!  But really, how many people have neat and tidy closets?  

Really?  That many?  OK, back to being totally embarrassed again.

Anyway, here are the before pictures, please don't judge...haha:

Below is the wall we are working with:

And here is the closet after thinning out my hanging clothes a few weeks ago:

And now, here is our new wall of storage:

(Yes, it is an entertainment center, but the piece we wanted was out-of-stock, and this unit was the exact same size and we can use the larger openings for bigger things.)

We have found a few, well-made, sturdy bins (like the one's shown above) to store things like socks, underwear, etc in, but are just now starting to get everything sorted.  I hope to have everything cleaned out and sorted and put into place by the weekend.

It's no where near finished, but I think it's a great start!

I hope you are all having a fantastic week!

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To see the end of day two, go here!