Closet, Closet, Closet!!!

It seems fitting that the last project I shared at the Woodward Place was my Ikea closet makeover and the first I'm sharing here is a closet makeover (what can I say... I'm a girl). Here goes nothing...

I have a pink, glittery closet y'all.

I wish you could see the glitter in pics. Trust me, it's there.

 It's a very, very, very faint pink. You almost wouldn't notice it if it weren't for the glitter smacking you in the face. Barbie would approve.

I got pretty lucky that this closet had an existing system in it; it wasn't nearly as fancy as the Ikea closet I built last year but it was free...or umm... built into my mortgage. The problem with the closet before is it was straight up nasty. Brown paint, dirty brown carpet that needed to be stretched, a poorly patched hole in the ceiling, and a pad-lock on the door. I shit you not, I saw the lock on the door during our inspection and seriously debated pulling out of my contract. What are we trying to keep from coming out?

Boo.

A lot of the nastiness was helped when the carpet was replaced (along with all the bedrooms). After that, I just painted my little heart out. The bad lighting is yet to be addressed. Another big improvement was Clorox wiping the whole thing. If you're into insider trading, buy into Clorox now cause I'm sending that stock through the roof.

As much as I love it now, pale pink wasn't the original plan. I originally wanted to do Dalmatian spots all over my walls, per people on Pinterest with way more class and money for wallpaper than me.

oooooh. aaaaaah. http://www.brit.co/dalmatian-print-walls/

Found a tutorial, tested it out. It was love at first sight.

Then I started applying it to my walls. And it was terrible.

 Pretty sure if I kept going, I'd need to lay down every time I came in.

After I finally got my eyes to focus, I realized it looked a Lisa Frank kindergarten art project. Or finger painting. I wanted to stop immediately, but my friends kept saying, "looks great" or "you'll like it when you're done." After resolving to try it over a larger area I was forced to admit I still hated it.

Disclaimer: if any part of you thinks the Dalmatian Spots were fabulous, I urge you not to try it at home. That business had to be sanded down and took about 6 coats of paint to cover. If you still love the trend (like I do), splurge on the wallpaper.

Back to my mental list of Things You Can Not Do When You Live with a Man and it didn't take long for me to settle on pink and glitter:

I was going for girly. I got Elle Woods.

One gallon of the lightest pink paint I could find that didn't look like it belonged in a nursery and two packs of paint crystals (one silver, one gold) and voila! The most spectacular sparkly closet I ever did see.

If you are considering using paint crystals in the future, I have two tips:

1. The glitter is much more visible in rollered sections. Getting the edged-in trim to show glitter would have been a Dumbledore level magic trick. Role as much as possible. Seriously, don't underestimate the difference.
2. You probably shouldn't mix in the paint crystals until your second coat. It's not a strategy that occurred to me until I was already all mixed up, but the second coat just painted over the first coat's crystal. It could have been doubly as sparkly if I hadn't split my crystals through a whole gallon and mixed them all into the final coat. You don't need a glittery primer, so why would you want a glittery first coat? Hind sight is 20/20.

Full Blognesty: No, I don't have an empty closet in my bedroom just waiting to be filled up. I still have miles to go (and a few trips to Ikea) when it comes to organizing my closet, both with how I arrange in-season pieces and how lesser used/out-of-season items are stored. This post is not a full blown reveal. So why am I sharing it now? Because I'm too freaking excited about it.

Here is the closet in it's current state.

I don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it.

In my defense the piles on the floor are out-of-season or the size-too-small piles, NOT laundry. I've been saying I'll organize it for weeks, but instead I think I'll go braid friendship bracelets for me and my closet.

Toodles!