Coat Closet Redo

With four kids, two adults, and one ridiculously extreme winter, our coat closet was out of control.  It was stuffed to the gills and the Command hooks I had on the door for the kids kept breaking because those dang kids keep growing and their dang coats keep getting bigger and heavier.

Here's the before picture, only I forgot to take one before I took out the 387 coats and jackets and snow pants that were jammed in there.

Pinterest came to my rescue with a pin that showed a closet that got rid of hangers and just used hooks.  "Aha!" I thought, "That's the fix I need.  And it'll be super easy, cheap, and quick to do."

How foolish I am.  You'd think I'd know better by now.

It actually was easy and cheap.  But quick?  Try two and a half weeks.  First we had to wait for the hooks to come from eBay. (Thirty hooks for $30, including shipping.  Can't beat that!) Then I decided to use some old paint for the inside, because why buy new paint?  Except I chose the darkest blue and had to put on coat after coat after coat of paint, and that's with primer and stuff.  Sheesh.

Then I had to buy the wood, but things kept coming up and I couldn't get to the hardware store and when I finally did I waited and waited and waited for them to cut it but no one came even though I was told three times they would so whatever.  So then Lance had to measure it and try to cut it and then take it to our woodworking neighbor to have him cut it the right way. :)

And then it needed to be sanded and painted but another freakin' POLAR VORTEX came into town and it was too darn cold in the garage to do either of those.  Then Lance was super nice and sanded them for me and I bit the bullet and decided to paint them in the kitchen.  Only I realized halfway through that the paint I used wasn't true white but rather a very pale grey but at that point who cared?!

As soon as they were dry Lance put everything up in the closet.  I think he was pretty tired of all the winter coats on our floor.  (Side note: Lance had the largest number of random jackets in the closet.  Just sayin'.)

So as of last night, this is what the closet looked like.  Much better!

Okay, ignore the Grover Monster from Sesame Street blue - it's actually a lot darker in person.  It really could have used another coat of paint, but I ran out and there was no way I was going to buy more paint for a closet!

And finally this morning I was able to get everything back in.

See, you can hardly see the blue paint, so it doesn't even matter.  The bag-looking things on the left are rolled up snow pants, in case you were wondering.

Now everyone has their own coat hook - several of them!  No more excuses for coats left on the floor.  Not that that will stop Josh - that kid couldn't hang up his coat to save his life.

I still keep all of the hats and coats and stuff on top because my darling daughter has a tendency to get into things like that and leave a path of death and destruction in her wake. (Read: she likes to bite and unravel winter accessories.)

We even have room for visitor coats, whereas before the make-over I didn't even want to open the door, it was so awful.

I'm pretty happy with the whole project, even if it did take way longer than it should have.