We Went on a Shelving Spree

Inspired by our finally-finished new laundry room, Jake and I were motivated to get all the shelves we've been wanting installed throughout the house.

First came the front coat closet. Previously, all it had was a coat rack with a shelf above it. And since I don't even own A coat, let alone many coats that would necessitate an entire rack, what am I gonna do with a coat rack? I knew this area was being under-utilized.



So we put an IKEA bookshelf in there, cut the coat rod in half, and reinstalled it (you never know if we'll have an especially chilly winter. Like in the 40's or something). I may have also painted the back wall to make it prettier. The bookshelf has more than enough room for our cleaning supplies and paper goods.

I also added a couple hooks on the wall for dusters & umbrellas. The leftover floor space holds the vacuum, and the upper shelf (which was untouched) holds lightbulbs, vacuum bags, and our indoor tool box.


Another great feature of the closet is the over-the-door shoe rack that holds all the stuff that you need but can never locate in your house (flashlights, extension cords, a level, febreze, etc). That's actually been there a while, and I got the idea from Jake's mom.

Our paper towels and TP used to be in our linen closet. But since they moved to their new home, our linen closet suddenly had room to hold all of our linens! So project #2 was adding more shelves here, and our towels and sheets can live comfortably together now, instead of crammed into one small space.


And finally, since we have the smallest 2-car garage in the history of garages, we (I with my ever-growing belly) couldn't get in and out of our van while it was parked in the garage. We needed to get rid of the shelving/work bench we had on the side of our garage. So Jake installed upper shelving to hold camping equipment and other garage-worthy items.










So now we're shelved as shelved can be. And very pleased with our new-found storage space.