The Hand Me Down House: Broom Closet Makeover

I'm going to guess that most people have a junk drawer in their house -- you know that place where any odd or end could get shoved in and it seems to be it's permanent home. Well in our house we have a junk closet. Yes it's true -- a whole closet that is full of stuff -- from cleaning supplies, to dog treats, to shopping bags and more -- it all ended up there. I didn't realize how messy this was until I tried to put my new Swiffer Sweeper Vac (that I won from Kuzak's Closet -- be sure to link up for the Sister Sister Sunday link party they have!) in my broom closet and there was no room for it. Then I saw how scary it was...so look at the mess below at your own risk.

EEEEK! Didn't I tell you it was ghastly!?! Seriously -- this is how we live behind closet doors sometimes. I had tried several times to clean it out and make it a bit more organized, but it never stayed that way. There just wasn't enough useful storage space in this closet; or as my Mom's family calls it, the telephone booth (apparently when she was growing up in a house of four kids and one phone, they would take the phone into the "telephone booth" and make their calls in privacy -- away from the rest of the eaves droppers. To this day, that is what a broom closet is called -- the phone booth).

So the first step, obviously, is to clean that puppy out! I removed my million and two plastic shopping bags and recycled most of them at Target. (They have bins you can drop off unwanted plastic bags at each store).

At least we're starting with a blank slate now. After I constructed my own shelves in our bathroom nook -- I knew this would be a perfect place for similar shelves. I wanted white shelves, but I thought it might look weird with with the oak inside. On the other hand I DEFINITELY didn't want to paint the inside of that closet white -- that sounded extremely tedious and a little overkill -- although I won't lie -- it would be SO nice. That's when I had the idea to use adhesive drawer liner for the inside.

I bought this stuff at Target for only $5.60! And there is plenty of it left over. I measured, cut and adhered my liner to the inside of my closet.

Then I constructed my shelves, just like the ones in our bathroom. They have a 1x2 on each side with a board laid across them and some trim in front to keep it pretty. You can read more about how to make these shelves here.

Much better, right?

I also bought a plastic bag dispenser from SimpleHuman at Target for $8.99 and put some baskets that I found a for a few dollars at Joanne's and thrift stores inside too. Now we have a much more organized space to hold daily cleaning supplies, bags, and doggy treats.

On that first shelf I have my homemade disinfecting wipes in a Rubbermaid container , along with some baskets full of ready to use garbage bags and Swiffer Sweepers and then a basket full of our chargers for vacuums and other household things. Our middle shelf is full of Ruby's treats and food and the bottom shelf holds a recycling bin (otherwise we have empty cans, bottles and boxes sitting on top of our fridge waiting to be brought outside) and our beloved Swiffer. I also added some cork board squares to the door to post things like stamps, important phone numbers -- you know all the good stuff.

I usually have my Dust Buster and my apron hanging up in there -- but I took them down so you could see the rest of the closet. :) Most of the original "junk" stayed in the closet -- just more organized; but some of it got moved to other, more practical places in the house.