Before & Middle: Shanna's Craft Room/Closet {part I}

A month or so ago, I posted my plans to redo the large storage closet in our one bedroom and make it into a functional, cute craft room space.  Up today is the first of a two-part reveal of how that space turned out.  There would be an obscene amount of pictures if I tried to do the big reveal in just one post, so today will show the before and "middle" stages.  The before and afters will go up on Monday -- just to add as much suspense as possible.

It took two full days to transform the space from a scary blank slate to a sweet, pretty little room.  Here's where I started:  this is what you used to see when you opened the door.  Tubs and piles of stuff that were just waiting to be organized.  The closet has always been this minty green color.  When we moved in, I added a bunch of hooks, which until recently held lots of purses that I never used.  I donated the purses, so I could ditch all but three of the hooks.

before

Once I cleared out the space, I did some repairs and cleaning and then put some of the storage furniture I already had back in the space.  Here is how that same spot looks after a day of work.

Up next is the far wall of the closet.  It was total dead space with the studs exposed and a sagging plywood wall and ceiling.   Gross.  You can also see the big gap between the sheet rock ceiling in the foreground and the plywood behind it. Ug-ly.

I took care of business and totally repaired everything in that area.  I hung pegboard and plywood on the back wall to hide those ugly studs, and added some trim while I was at it.   For that ugly gap between the sheet rock and plywood there in the front, I added some trim and used caulk to seal the gap.  Doesn't it look better already?  Even before I've taken my trusty paint brush to it?

Next up is the long wall of the space.  You can really see the sagging wood on the ceiling and that awful gap in the ceiling, too.  Here's the shabby before, with piles o' stuff and once I removed it.

And here's that same spot after I took my tools to it.  I added the trim and caulk and decided to go for broke by adding some moulding along the ceiling and "wall" in the middle.

Oh, and by the way, because I am insane and love to paint more than words can express, I updated the old fake wood [read: cheap] bookcases by taking advantage of a super warm January day here in PA (i.e., 50 degrees) and painting them white.  They went from totally geek:

to like totally chic.

There you go!  A recap of one day's hard work.  In one day (9:30-4:00) I emptied the space, removed all hooks and miscellaneous nails in the wood, cleaned the space, repaired the wood ceiling and walls, hung peg board, hung plywood on the wall and ceiling, added trim and moulding, cleaned the heck out of the space, organized all of the contents that were going back in the space and moved everything back in.  Day 2 was all about painting and accessorizing.  Stay tuned for the big reveal ...

See you swoon,