The standard builder grade closet, everyone knows it right? A shelf and a rod. If you're lucky you may get a shelf and a double rod, but it's still nothing to write home about. Welp, that was our closet to a T and it was made worse by years of putting off any type of organization. Since we bought our home our owner's closet was THE place where we put all the things, things that had no business in our closet let alone our lives, things that invoked phrases like these:
"I don't know where to put this"
"I haven't used this in two years, but I may use it again"
"I made this in my high school home ec class Mauri, I don't know what its for but I sewed it with my own hands!"
"Mary-Kate and Ashley VHS tapes are CLASSICS, you CAN'T just THROW THEM AWAY MARK!"
Anyway, all that crap made our closet look like this:

NOT CUTE
However fortunate or unfortunate it was, our closet was also shoddy and broken and we finally reached our limit of how much nonsense we could take. So we decided to make use of the annual 30% off ELFA sale at The Container Store and redo our closet.
We toyed with the idea of building out our closet, but ultimately we liked the time we would save by using the ELFA system and also the ELFA system is extremely versatile. If our needs change over time it is so easy to change the closet too whereas a built-in closet is not flexible.
HERE SHE IS NOW

Here's a little rundown of everything we did to the space:
PURGED THE THINGS
Faux Shiplap Ceiling with Crown Molding
Paint - Valspar Stormy Cove
New Light from Lowe's. Naturally it didn't come in gold so I spray painted it.
ELFA Decor Line Closet System - more deets below.
PURGED MORE THINGS
Rug from World Market. It's beautiful and soft, do the curbside pickup and save 10%.
Blush ottoman off Amazon, not linking because it said it was a storage ottoman and its not.
Large gold mirror is from At Home and has lived us for many moons.
The ELFA System
We measured our closet and used the online design tool offered by The Container Store. We were able to pick up all the components at Albuquerque's TCS within a week and installed it ourselves. Let me tell you, that once you screw in the tracks (which is what everything hangs on) and get the hang of how the pieces work, installing the closet is a piece of cake. It can be overwhelming, because there are so many pieces but if you give yourself time and a glass of wine, I repeat, it is CAKE. We used ELFA in the nursery too and I really can't recommend it enough!
On my side of the closet we went with some long hanging, shelves for my bags, two sets of drawers, two shoe shelfs (shown with birch fronts), two shoe racks (great for heels), and filled the rest with short hanging. My husband got a LOT of hanging, a pant rack, shoe shelfs, and one set of drawers. The configuration is working out well for now and we love having all our clothes in one place so we aren't hopping from dresser to dresser to the closet to get ready. More pics are below!
Let me know if you have any Q's and I'll answer as best I can!
Mauri





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