Nursery Closet Makeover

Last month I posted what some of my projects and plans for 2016 were, and number 2 on the list was setting up the nursery closet. I am happy to say I can officially cross that item off. I know you guys have been dying to see nursery updates, but as of right now, I’m sad to say that is the only thing done in the room! Next week I’ll be sharing more specific plans for the nursery, followed by some progress posts which is exciting! It’s coming together slowly but surely.

Back to the closet. This is the before photo in case you had forgotten. As I mentioned, my hubby has always used this empty room as his second closet. Well now that I gave his closet a makeover, he has officially been kicked out of the nursery closet.

I emptied it out and removed the wire racks.

and patched all the holes.

I’m happy to also say I finally chose a paint color for the nursery. As you can see I only sampled about 239,482 colors. (Please refer to post about 3 reasons why choosing paint colors will make you LOSE it.) I decided upon Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige and so far I love it. (It’s the third color on the top row)

So much that I painted the inside of the closet. (But mostly because I wanted to test this paint color out on a larger space before committing to painting the entire nursery. Which worked out well.)

Here is the design I had in mine for the closet. It’s very technical and drawn to scale. Not.

To start the new design I had in mind for this closet, I purchased this PAX frame from IKEA that I would use as the center piece.

It’s customizable in the sense that you can add drawers or shelves anywhere you’d like. I DID NOT feel like constructing an entire closet from scratch (like my master closet) while pregnant. That thing took me 4 months to make and just NO.

So I bought these drawers and these shelves from IKEA and these knobs from Lowe’s to complete the look of the center frame.

On either side of the frame, I wanted to add shelves and hanging bars. 2 on the top and 2 on the bottom. I purchased a 1×3 piece of wood from Lowe’s and cut it into 4 equal pieces (the depth of the closet) and painted them the same color as the walls to disguise them.

I hung them each at the height I wanted each shelf. Which was nothing technical, I simply used a hanger and a piece of baby clothing to measure where I wanted them and then simply drew a mark on the wall.

Here’s the 1×3 on the wall where the shelf would “rest” on.

On the opposite side, I drew a line on the center frame where the shelf would be and screwed in the shelf hooks that came with the IKEA shelf. These little hooks are usually meant to go INSIDE the frame into predrilled holes, so I had to pre drill my own holes.

I used these shelves from IKEA which are the same ones that go inside the frames, but I got the largest size (39″) to fit the width of my space. I had to cut them down to about 36″ to make them fit, but they were cheap and once again easier than making my own.

Here is the shelf resting on the 1×3 and the shelf hooks.

For the rods, I bought wooden dowels from Lowe’s in 1.25″ diameter. I cut them down to the width of my space, which was about 36″ and used plastic closet rod ends from Lowe’s as well to attach them into.