Fixing What Bugs You

Where to begin?

First: we decided to refinance our house. It helps us to lower our payment. With that happening, we have not been able to really work on anything. We had to have an appraiser come to our house, so we couldn't have it all torn apart.

Before the appraiser came, however, I did decide to work on the one thing that irritates me more then anything else in our house.

What you ask?

Our hallway closet.

In the spirit of full disclosure, this is what our hallway closet looked like 99% of the time.

Our kids get home from school and toss their backpacks and crap on the floor. Most of the time their stuff was vomiting out into the hallway. No matter how many times I "reminded" them to clean it up, it was always there.

That coupled with the fact that the closet door blocks our hallway, was enough to make me batty most days.

When something irritates you day in and day out, the only reasonable option seems to be...to paint it.

You know what they say? If you like it then you better put a dot on it.

That's not how it goes?!

Well, while I drew circles, you can imagine that I sang my version of the Beyonce song.

Using a cup for my circles seemed like the easiest idea to me. I spaced them randomly, and used a little sample pot of paint I bought at Home Depot months ago for $.50.

Blake moved up the top shelf so that one day we can add another shelf. Just moving up the shelf seems to have made more room in the closet. That...or the fact that I got rid of 90 gazillion pairs of kid shoes they don't wear.

With the shelf moved up, the new shelf looked out of place. I had some of the color paint left so I decided to paint the top of the closet.

I gave the gold hooks, that were in there, a little coat of paint to match our kids homework holder.

Then I stood back and thought..."is this busy closet going to bug me?"

Then it occurred to me, "if it does, then I will paint it." Easy enough.

When I was painting all of the dots, Penny kept being insistent that I needed to make some small dots. She wasn't happy with the prospect of only big dots. So, I did what any crazy mom would do. I appeased her with three small dots. They even got antennas and a smiley face.

Having all the crap back in the closet kind of takes away from it's charm...but it also covers up the loudness of the dots.

So far having the dots has made me not hate it every time I see it open. My big dreams for the closet would be adding a sliding door, like this.

In the mean time...

Blake and I have been plotting our next move for the house. With the appraisal done, we decided to start the big downstairs room remodel.

Blake was even kind enough to do a scale drawing of the basement.

The one on the left shows the secret laboratory. The one on the right shows the new bedroom addition and office. 

We are supposed to close in a couple days and then the construction begins.

I am as giddy as a school girl.