You will never guess what we did

Searching for ideas on how to organize and spruce up your closet?  Here you can find how we make over our closet with wallpaper and organize with totes.  

Do you love surprises where you expect dull and bland and you get BAM...  a wonderful surprise... something unexpected, but you like it... and you decide this is the way everything in life should be... 

If you answered yes to above, then I have a pleasant surprise for you today... which leads me to my question, what to you think about closets?  If you are thinking to yourself, well Cara, I thought we were going to see a reveal and I do not think about them because well, they hold stuff so who cares?  I would reply well yes, they hold stuff and we do have a reveal, but they can be pretty too.  You see when I started out in our journey of rehabbing this cozy cottage, I decided I wanted to make every square inch of it "fancy pants"... so I keep plugging away at it one square inch at a time.

You saw the organization of our bathroom closet, if you missed it, you can find it here and if you like to label things, you can see a post here.  I do love a good labeling project, good grief, now I am beginning to sound like my mother.  Mr. Vintage, if you are out there reading this, shhh...  Back to the closet, I felt like there was something missing though with everything organized, I could see the tired white walls, and thought well, here goes nothing, another wallpapering opportunity!  

Mr. Vintage hates wallpaper!  He reminds me what a pain it was to remove wallpaper from every single wall in this home when we purchased it.  If you missed before and after's of some of the rooms, you can find them here, here, and here.  I had to remind him the wallpaper of today is not the same as it was in the past and the peel and stick?  It is a game changer!  I remember my mom wallpapering our home many times while growing up, it was a huge ordeal and I recall asking are you done yet may times!  

This little closet took much longer than it should have but he was working around a lot and having to piece it all in because of the brackets on the wall for our shelves.  Some would ask why didn't we remove the brackets.  Mr. Vintage did suggest that, but then I asked about getting it back in the correct spot when the wall was covered, working around the plumbing access, and what if they did not want to come off the wall very easily?  He caved and said fine, we will leave them... at the time, I did not think it was going to be such a gruesome pain in the rear or I may have caved...  poor Mr. Vintage!

I will relay that he did say this was the easiest wallpaper he has ever worked with, if you missed our last closet loveliness you can find it here.  He was dreading this project when I told him I bought wallpaper for the closet, you should have heard the groan... it started low, then became louder, then turned into a grumble and something about hating wallpaper.  Neither project was bad, but he said this one was easier, so I am thankful for that.  

Pics are below from beginning to end... we actually worked on this yesterday and finished up the last row this morning.  He had time to burn this month and you do not have to twist my arm to take time off...

As you can see, I still have the closet all organized, what is it, a month I have made it?  Yeah for me!

We removed the shelves and I started painting the brackets for the shelves and the larger wood piece at the top of the closet with silver paint.  I actually had it on hand when I was planning to take wallpaper and make tin like holders for flowers at the ends of the pews for our wedding... long story short, I decided to go with bows... and I digress... noticing a pattern here, it doesn't take me much to get sidetracked.

We found the silver paint and I was all excited, I wanted it to pop against the wallpaper I chose.  

As you can see, I was not caring a bit if I "colored" inside the lines... 

I then painted a second coat on everything.  

Here it is, the first strip going up!  I was so excited to see it, and thought it brightened up the closet... 

And Mr. Vintage kept going... like I said it was discussed what to do with the sides and you see how much more difficult the project became with the brackets staying in place...

He kept piecing it in... and so on... 

Do you not see the fancy pants coming to life before your very eyes?  I was gushing with happiness each time he sent me in to photograph his progress.  He just rolls his eyes and says "happy wife, happy life" and I beam with joy at the fanciness of the closet!  

And then you say, oh Cara, I see a plan coming together, or at least that is what I am hoping you say... I was super excited to see the project wrapping up and I know Mr. Vintage was happy it was ending too.  

I considered painting the shelves silver as well, but then I decided I liked my white shelves.  I think it keeps it light and bright in the closet which is what I was aiming for!

Are you sharing my joy at having a wonderfully fancy pants bathroom closet, or do you steer more towards my mother's way of thinking?  Who cares, who sees it after all?  She has a more utilitarian outlook on life when it comes to some of my projects. Me? I live in my fancy pants world and quite like it, you know where rainbows and puppy dogs are always running around and everything looks beautiful.  At least, that is what I prefer.  😉

There you have it, my "fancy pants" closet!  If you are new here, I reference fancy pants when I take something ordinary and make it you know, fancy pants.  It is a term one of my cousins and I made up long ago and it just stuck with me.  I like it, it reminds me of youth, innocence, and always thinking everything in the world is good and beautiful at the same time.  

So everyday, now several times a day when I open this closet, I will smile to myself and remember this project Mr. Vintage (mostly him) and I worked on.  I love when we get to make something more to our liking in our home.  This house was really a blank slate because we did not care for any of the interior design choices when we purchased it.  I recall my grandmother saying, I just love it, I would not change a thing... and I thought to myself, yep, makes sense, she is in her 90's and the décor was pretty much to her taste.  We wanted to keep our home in 1950 when the build was completed, but we also wanted it to reflect our personalities too.  You can see now that includes wallpapered fancy pants closets.  

Do you wallpaper your closets to bring a smile to face?  Here is a link to the wallpaper we used.  It does say taupe on the description, but it looks gray to me if you need any help with making a decision on the color.  Our bath is gray, white, and yellow and I think it matches just perfectly.  You can find the totes here.  It comes in a pack of two and they have a wire frame.  I actually purchased more for another project I have yet to begin.  Yep, more ideas floating around this brain of mine, and not enough time to complete them.  Here is a link to some easy upgrades you can make around your home.  I like easy as much as the next person... just changing out your curtains, curtain rods, bedding, wallpapering a closet lol, adding some shelves, or new pillows can really spruce up your space.  I love adding pillows, for some reason just adding that extra bit of "fluff" to a room seems to have quite the affect.  Can you tell I just really love to decorate?  It is kind of my passion... it makes my heart sing, and I love creating new spaces for our home! It’s the small things in life, we work hard so we all deserve making our homes our haven.  It seems this past year that has become more true now than ever.   

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