Back in the saddle...positive attitude restored + closet update

After my semi-breakdown last evening, I went to work today and had a co-worker send me an instant message telling me that she hears I’m a “home renovator extraordinaire.”   She said that if I had a minute or two, she’d love for me to come to her desk so that I could give her some home decorating advice.

Hmmm….well, first of all I was flattered that someone that I work with (and doesn’t read this blog) gives me credit for such a thing.  Second, I went down to speak with her and it turns out that she’s considering buying a house in my neighborhood and it’s a handyman’s special (to say the least).  After looking at the pictures of her potential project, it gave me A LOT of perspective on my own house as well as my own bellyaching.   I realized that I didn’t have it that bad after all and should probably zip my lip [on the complaining tip].  Anyways, it felt great to be able to chat with her (a first time homeowner) and give her some thoughts on what she was getting herself into, etc.  It reminded me of my freelance gig, and how natural it felt to be helping someone out with these types of questions.

Also, thanks for everyone’s comments giving me moral support.  You know, it’s odd…there are support groups for new mothers, support groups for dieting, and support groups for alcoholics, but there are no support groups for people who are trying to learn how to renovate their old houses!  It seems like a good idea, right?!

Oh…and seeing as how I never posted the pics of my closet mini-facelift, I’ll go ahead and post them now.  Upon first purchasing the house, the closets were set up in such a manner as to not maximize the space.  You can see here that basically the right closet was a big, empty space with only one bar at the top.  The left closet had these weird little shelves that were too small to hold anything that I owned.

Well, with the onslaught of winter I had to have a place to fold sweaters…and seeing as how I don’t own a dresser it was going to have to be the closet.  Also not wanting to spend much money on this, we went searching through the house to find materials to improve it.  We found three shelves in various other closets that we didn’t need, and took them to the hardware store to ask them to cut them down for us.  (Yes, they’ll do that if you ask!  Because no I don’t own a circular saw.)  We also recycled some hooks and some plywood scraps as well.  The only thing we had to get was a dowel & brackets to give myself some additional hanging space.  Here’s the final result:

(One of the lessons we learned here was that you should cut to the distance of the opening for the shelf.  Not to the length of one of the other shelves in the closet.  You can tell that we had to build up the bracket on the left side with extra wood so it would stay.  Ugh.  Oh well…we’re not perfect.  At least I have a place to put the sweaters now instead of cardboard boxes.  Haha!)

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