Coat Closet Re-do

Oh. My. Gosh. I can't believe I'm about to show you these pictures...how embarrassing! As I mentioned earlier this week, I'm following along with Pure Style Home's Pure Organization Weekly Projects and this week Lauren has inspired me to organize our coat closet. First of all, I think we have too many coats! There's only 2 of us and we live in the south...how many coats do we really need?!?!? Secondly, the hanger on the door began as a good idea: I thought it'd be a great place to hang my aprons and scarves...but what an eye-sore it is now! Thirdly, we're "storing" stuff in here for which I think we could find a better home. Wish me luck...

Sign hanging on the doorknob of our coat closet. I need to "have a little faith" that I can tackle this project!

Ugh...what a mess!!!

How can I even find what scarf I want to wear? I wish I could say that I use those aprons...they're really beautiful aprons...

Icky. What a waste of space!

 

There are no words for the floor...a hodge podge of stuff, cleaning supplies, bags, silly gifts, etc.

I was so overwhelmed with tackling this project that I found it best to be a copy cat. Here is the Pure Style Home version (much cuter than mine!) Unfortunately, because we rent (and will hopefully move out in 6 mos. or so) it'd be silly to be paint. So I did my best to make it look nice. What's most important is that it's organized, and I should be able to keep it this way! That being said, as soon as we own our home, I will so be taking Lauren's advice to paint it a pretty color...and I do love the aqua she chose! Now...drumroll please....here is our new-and-improved coat closet!

The first task I started with was going through our coats. I got rid of a couple of mine that I no longer wear (or that no longer fit--like an old yellow slicker that had 3/4 sleeves on me now--that's not gonna keep me dry when it's raining!), switched out the hangers so that they're all white (already had these), and divided our coats so that mine are on the left and Jay's are on the right (they're coded by color and length, too).

I bought a cheap shoe organizer at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and while initially I wasn't thrilled with the idea of clear plastic, once I put our winter scarves, mittens, hats--and my aprons!--in, I liked being able to see what was available so I can quickly grab it on my way out the door, and it added color to our drab closet.

The closet floor is the biggest improvement. I also bought this wire cube organizer at BB&B (gotta love 20% off coupons!) to house our "stuff." I've got cleaning supplies in there, games, and my ever-handy step stool. In a perfect world, there'd be another place to keep the cleaning supplies, but our coat closet is in a very accessible area of the house and there's really not another logical place to put it, so I just decided to make it work!



The only thing I have left to decide is whether or not to hang the broom, mop, duster, etc. on the left and right side of the closet walls, or to hang them right outside our back door in our garage. (I'm voting for garage, but I think Jay is hopeful that if they're inside, maybe I'll clean more!)

And last, but certainly not least, here's the shelf in the closet. I grabbed this cute basket (which I re-found while cleaning out the guest closet) and threw a couple of larger winter items and blankets inside. I can also use it to "hide" shopping returns and exchanges until I make it to the store.

What's even better is that while organizing the coat closet, I was inspired to quickly organize under the kitchen sink! I don't have a "before" picture, but I guarantee you it was bad. Here it is now:

I used this cute picnic utensil basket that never gets used for our under-the-sink cleaning supplies.

And used this cool hammered brass antique pitcher to keep all our plastic bags that I like to re-use to take my lunch to school.

Unless I'm inspired by Lauren's organization post tomorrow to work on something else, my plan for this week is the laundy room...