Wow! I can’t believe that I get to call this closet clean out FINISHED!! As with most projects, I’m sure that I will still tinker here and there but for all intents and purposes this guest room closet makeover is done!
As with all of my projects, it took longer than anticipated, I got tired and overwhelmed, and I put it on the back burner for awhile.
But I finally got my mojo back and went full speed ahead! There were a few parts of this clean out and makeover. In a previous post in March, I had cleaned out the stationary side of the closet and then in another post, I put together the new storage system.
Now, the stationary side is put together and the decor side has been de-cluttered and re-organized. It is not Pinterest perfect, but it is workable which is what I need it to be.
Let’s look at where we started and where we’ve landed.
Decor Side Clean Out
There was lots of stuff here but it wasn’t organized and I wasn’t going to keep everything in here. I also had to clear out the craft items that are inside of the dresser. This side of the closet houses, the dresser with craft items and supplies, storage bins and containers as well as decor items that I use around the house.
I needed to remove all of the items and decide what I was keeping and what would be donated. I took everything out and put it on my dining room table so that I could see EVERYTHING that I had. My poor dining room table is the work horse of many of my projects!
This is both the best and the worst part. I like seeing what I have but I hate seeing how much money I’ve spent on items that were either never used or so hidden that I forgot I had them. I’m not going to lie-these items stayed on my dining room table for a long time. One of these days I might learn to work faster or more efficiently so that I can get done with projects more quickly and have my table seasonally decorated.
While you can see that the top of the dresser and the shelf is cleaned off, what you can’t see (because I forgot to take photos) is that I have gone through the drawers of the dresser, decluttered items and re-organized each drawer. That of course, was a project by itself.
One of the goals of this project is to get rid of the filing cabinet in the guest room. 3 of the 4 drawers housed paint products and tools which now live in the storage dresser. The final drawer has paperwork. I needed to figure out a solution for housing the necessary paperwork.
I purposefully got a file box that would fit my files but not have too much extra room. I try very hard not to create too much paper and so far this box is doing the trick.
Heading Toward Completion
And now it’s time to start putting it all together. The stationary side has been pretty well done for a bit now. It’s time to organize the decor side which has been the harder side for me. I did have to move some things around on the stationary side because I did leave a few cubes empty specifically for the decor side.
Before I had the new storage system, there were also 2 plastic carts with several drawers that needed to be cleaned out and those items got decluttered and reorganized as well. There were some craft items, some packaging items, and various other things needed a home.
You can see the plastic carts here with one stacked on top of the other.
I’m now starting to put items away and find homes for others. You can see that I have yellow stickies on the dresser indicating the items in them. I’m going to make other labels for the drawers but for the moment I just needed to mark them so that I can know what is in there.
The 2nd photo is viewed from the left end of the storage unit. You can see that the cubbies are now filled with items.
It’s very hard to photograph the entire closet but this is a shot of the two sides.
It’s not done yet but I’m starting to move items around and find homes for things.
I have a lot of notebooks and writing paper and sticky notes and this is after getting rid of a ton of stuff! I will say that there are a few small things that I will change on this storage unit. The magazine boxes labeled 2, 3, and 4 will be replaced with different ones. I had placed those there as “for now” until I decided what I wanted.
Here you can see that I’ve placed some decor items on the upper shelf. These are items that I use in my home for decoration sometimes as general decor and sometimes for seasonal decor.
Changes
One of the things that I decided to do was to change the drawer pulls. They came with these small silver ones but I wanted to go with something a little bolder.
There’s no special reason to do this. The silver ones are perfectly fine and if you like a more minimal look they work really well. This is just a personal taste kind of thing. I have 4 drawers so I replaced all of the pulls.
Where’s the Stuff
The 1st photo is proof that everything that was on the table is now no longer on the table!! There’s little chance that it will stay that way though because I’m currently in the midst of cleaning out and re-organizing my pantry! However, it will be back to seasonal decor very soon!
The 2nd photo is the pile of stuff that will be loaded into the car and taken to be donated.
THE END
And, there she is. All done and ready to hold and house all of my stuff. Like I said at the start, it is not a Pinterest makeover but so far it works for me and that is what matters.
Now that the closet is done, there are a few things left to take care of in the guest room.
-get rid of the filing cabinet (even empty it’s really heavy and I’ll need help
-re-arrange the room
-organize my fitness equipment
One of the minor tasks I need to figure out is whether or not I want or need another storage unit or book shelf or something else in the guest room to store some of the items that are not in the closet. I’ll decide this once the file cabinet is gone and the furniture re-arranged.
Another item on the “want” list is that I’d like to change out the couch I currently have in the room and replace it with a sleeper sofa. This is not currently on my radar however, and will definitely be something I look at in 2025.
What do you think? Any suggestions? Share in the comments.
