Rearranging Closets

Jeff is delighted with his new closet. It is much larger than the one he had upstairs.

All his clothes easily fit and we are going to add some hooks onto the blank wall areas to provide even more hanging space.

And I'm thrilled I got to claim the closet upstairs to store quilting supplies. I'll have to put some thought into how I want it all arranged before I start moving into the shelves.

I've already hung all my flimsies and quilt backings on the other wall. Hopefully, this is the maximum number I'm going to have. I expect once I have the long arm I will quilt most of them fairly quickly.

(For folks who are interested in the quilting side of my blogging, I am posting my quilting endeavors over at my quilt blog.)

Basement Closet Finished

Except for the door, the closet is finished!

I had hoped to stain this closet like we stained the others (with the support boards stained and the shelf boards not), but masking was taking way too long and I would have had to go buy more masking tape so I gave up the effort. I was beyond ready to be done with this project so I bailed on that plan and just stained it all the same color.

It's time to start packing up the dressers to prepare for the movers on Wednesday. And, I think I can finally schedule delivery of my long arm. I'm excited about all the quilting fun I get to have this summer.

Sanding Again

I finally got back to work on the basement today. I spent ALL DAY masking and sanding the closet. Tomorrow I'm planning to wipe down the wood and start staining. 

I scheduled movers to help us move in next Wednesday so now I have a deadline.

Basement Wainscoting

Tim and Tony have made a lot of progress on the basement this week. I didn't get down for the painting photos because everything was masked up and I was trying to stay out of the way. But the plastic is down and the wood molding has started going up.

This is the closet door. Tragically, they had to cut about a foot off the bottom to get it to fit in the space.

They'll probably spend another week or so finishing everything, then I can get in there and stain.

Our rugs have all arrived. I opened one of the small ones and to be honest, they've exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a bit of a plastic feel, but they're soft and look pretty good. Even the back is nice, it looks much like a hand-woven rug. I guess we'll see how well they wear. For the cost, I don't have high expectations.

Closet Finished!

With all the drama in the kitchen, I never got around to posting about my closet progress. It is finished! And I have unpacked ALL the clothes! 

I thought I remembered downsizing my square dance clothes before I packed them up originally, but I clearly still have way too many. That bottom rod is crammed full and I'm worried there is too much weight on there. I will definitely need to disassemble some of the skirts to make quilts, or start dancing again. =)

I scored 5 large tubs of plastic hangers in rainbow colors off craigslist so I actually
managed to hang all the shirts/blouses on color-coordinated hangers. LOL

I'd forgotten about some of my really beautiful medieval costumes. I definitely need to try them on and see if they'll fit me again.

Shelves Finished!

I am so excited to finally be nearing the completion of my closet project. Today, Jeff cut down the shelves to the right dimensions and then I sanded the edges and applied edge-banding. I used the pre-glued kind and it was much easier than I was expecting.

As seems to be typical for this project, I don't have enough shelf pins so I've already ordered those. They'll be here Friday.

Next up, we need to install the closet rods. At this point, it will probably be the weekend before we finish because Jeff gets his second round of coronavirus vaccine tomorrow. Based on reports from friends we're expecting he'll be wiped out for at least two days.

Closet Shellacked

I finally got my act together this week and continued work on my closet. I varnished the top shelf and did two coats of shellac on all the rest of the woodwork. (I used varnish on the top because I was hoping it would be more durable when we slide tubs and boxes across the surface.) 

We still need to finish making shelves for the cabinets. Unfortunately, the guy we hired to help us with this project cut the wood incorrectly and now we have to either buy more sheets of plywood or piece some of the shelves. Right now, Jeff is trying to piece the wood. 

I've also been working on cleaning my sewing room again. For the past few months, I've had a bad habit of finishing a project and then moving on to the next project without actually cleaning up the mess from the project I just finished. I had piles of fabric all over the place and a mountain of scraps overflowing onto the floor.

I've temporarily shifted some of the stuff from my sewing room into the closet to give myself more room to work. I will likely be moving some of the tubs from the sewing room into the closet permanently, but I still have a lot of boxes I need to unpack first to see how much room I have left.

I ordered brass rods and flanges and we got the rods last week, but the flanges were back-ordered. The shipping date looks like they may come next week. I'm hoping.

Closet Installed

We made good progress on our closet the past few days. We've installed the fixed shelving on the right side and face frame on the cabinets. Most of the wood was shellacked before it was installed, but I still need to shellac the face frame pieces. I would have shellacked everything, but I was worried there may be damage during the install and I figured it would be easier to touch up just stain.

Back when we did the rest of the closet I bought all the brass rods and brackets we needed to finish this closet, but then we used them in the guest room and sewing room closets, so today I ordered more. (If I had remembered, I would have ordered weeks ago.) I was relieved I could still find them, but it wasn't easy.

We still need to cut plywood shelves for the cabinets. And I have about two weeks to finish shellacking everything before we receive the rods.

Douglas Fir Staining

I put the last coat of stain on the plywood pieces this morning. 

Then, this afternoon, Jeff and I spent a couple hours finalizing the right side shelf design and measured and cut out the rest of the douglas fir. It didn't make much of a dent in our douglas fir stash out in the garage.

Tomorrow morning I'll put on the second coat of stain. It is possible we could start installing them as early as tomorrow afternoon, though we may want to wait until Monday morning to make sure they're totally dry.

Closet Progress

The boxes are built and installed. The douglas fir plywood is cut and ready for staining.

I know how I get to spend the weekend.

Next Up: Closet Shelving

We got a new toy! We're going to have to get rid of more stuff from the garage to make room for this!

Last Friday we went and bought the plywood to make the cabinets for the bedroom closet so hopefully, progress will begin soon. As a reminder, this is the plan.

I haven't made much progress on the back stairs since my last post. I bought a can of paint for the balusters and we scrubbed it down to get off most of the dirt, but now we need it to dry out enough to sand it. I need at least a week of dry weather to refinish the wood. 

Master Closet, Again

Back in early-2013, I presented a design for a very complicated wall of cubes for my master bedroom closet. Folks who have followed us for a while will no doubt be 0% surprised that we never built it.

Briefly, in 2016, I revisited the issue again hoping I could figure out an easier plan that we could actually do.

We didn't do that either. The more I looked at the plan, the more I was sure we would muck it up. We have a lousy woodshop and those boxes need to be made perfectly square. When I thought about how we would work on this project together, I decided it would not be good for our marriage. LOL

I think I finally figured out a way we can finish this project and not get a divorce. I read at the Family Handyman site a recommendation to use kitchen cabinetry for built-in bookcases and it occurred to me they might work for my closet! The benefit of using kitchen cabinets is they'll be drilled for adjustable shelves and everything will be built nice and square.

The days of free SketchUp are mostly gone, but I was able to make some edits to my old file. I'm not sure we'll be able to hang these cabinets without help, but we will try.

The plan calls for two stacked upper cabinets because I could not find a pantry cabinet that came as wide as I wanted it (they're 25½" wide); I'm sizing these to fit the Sterilite plastic tubs I like to use. The shelves along the right side will be fixed and simply cut to length in order to fill whatever space remains.

Closet Sifting

We didn't manage to finish the closet built-ins until August 2013 and then I slowly worked my way through unpacking my boxes. Since I had gained weight by then, I only unpacked the largest sizes. Even then, I don't recall having a lot of options of clothes that fit me. I'm not going to get into a long discussion of my various health problems, but my closet fell into disuse. There were clothes in there, but by last year, virtually all of them were too small. I tended to avoid going in there because it just made me feel bad. I kept telling myself I should just get rid of the clothes that no longer fit but I suppose I had always hoped I could lose the weight.

On my birthday a few weeks ago I was looking for something to wear and in desperation, I went into my closet and grabbed out some clothes. They fit!

Then yesterday, when I found myself surfing around online looking at clothes to buy, I finally prodded myself back into my closet. It was time to do a proper sift.

I was ecstatic when I realized virtually all of the shirts and dresses fit. I still have a way to go on my weight goals so I may yet have to buy some clothing. But not yet.

The one thing I had managed to do in the intervening years was to get rid of the boxes of smaller clothes I had never unpacked. Now I wish I hadn't. But when I finally reach my goal, I guess my reward will be to do some clothing shopping.

Among the items I hadn't gotten around to doing was getting rid of a couple of tuxes Jeff inherited when he was in high school. They had been altered to fit him at the time so he could wear them to dances/proms. They fit too!

Master Bedroom Closet Plan

It's been ages, but I was in the mood to take a look at my master bedroom closet plan. Back in 2013, we finished one side of the closet, but didn't finish the cube side. I held off on the cube side until after the bathroom remodel (just in case we wanted to steal space for the bathroom).

I decided my original plan was overly complicated. The piece shapes were going to be just too difficult to cut accurately.

The other day I was cruising around the internet and I ran across the IKEA Kallax 5x5 shelving unit and it got me thinking maybe I could just cheat..... It's sort of tempting. We could simply paint it to match the walls and probably finish this project in a couple of days.

But no, that would be too easy. LOL
Instead, I found this modular bookcase project at the Family Handyman website. This seems to be less complicated then our original plan and we could customize the cubes to fit our space. We're basing our design on 14" squares.

I've decided to downgrade to paint grade plywood because stain grade douglas fir plywood is more expensive than I can justify for this project. We're planning to finish the edges with small pieces of stained douglas fir from our pieces in the garage.

Rather than struggling to make the cubes exactly fit in the closet, I'm just going to install shelves on the right side cut to the available space.

I don't think we'll get to the closet before this fall. There's a lot we want to get done in the backyard this summer.

Hot Weather Whining

Not many projects are getting done this week. Portland is having a bit of a heat wave; at least compared to what we are acclimated to. Ugh. It has sucked. It's still in the 70s in the middle of the night and has been in the 90s during the day. It was over 100ºF the other day. Jeff is working this week with his friend building a patio roof, so he's been gone most of the day.

Unfortunately, I'm spending too much time in the basement, and I've been drawn to my stupid video game too much this week. Yuck. I hope this heat wave does NOT last all summer as I have a bunch of projects I am hoping to get done. I did finally get ahold of our floor refinisher and he isn't available until the second half of September. Now I'm really wishing I had called him as soon as we started stripping paint in that room. I might look for another floor refinisher, but I really like Perry from Reborn Floors (503-860-1930). He did a great job in the other rooms. I still haven't been able to talk to our fantastic electrician, Mike from B&H Electric (503-970-5730). Hopefully, he is available before September.

Last night we started dealing with resolving some of our long-neglected computer problems. We desperately need to retrieve files from our old computers, but none of them are in full working order. Jeff managed to get hooked up to his old backup drive and was delighted to find his huge collection of music! We both did a happy dance with that one because I had been remembering the weeks I spent feeding disks into the computer when we originally ripped the disks to the computer. I am SO glad I don't have to do that again.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to retrieve the files off my old computer. Until I do, I've lost all my historic house research and irreplaceable photos of our house purchase and remodel. The computer still turns on, but it hangs during startup. I also have a backup drive somewhere, but it got misplaced during the post-remodel clean up for the photoshoot. I don't need everything off the old computer, but it sure would be nice to retrieve all my stencil pattern files and old house books I'd downloaded.

We also received a new brass bracket for the sewing room closet to replace the white one that used to be in there. We've replaced all the rods in the house with stout brass closet rods and Jeff cut them to length for the sewing room last night. Hopefully, we'll get it all installed later today, once he's done with work.

We dug cans of paint out of the garage too, but I'm not sure when I'll be motivated to haul myself upstairs and start masking the sewing room. My motivation is definitely flagging with the floor finishing being so far in the future. We might try to wait out this heat.

And We Have Closets

We've been crazy busy since my post on Wednesday trying to get the wood ready for our closet install today. Yesterday was spent sanding and applying two coats of stain and then we got up early this morning to put on a coat of shellac. Luckily shellac dries fast or we would never have made it.

I still have to do some minor touch up on ends which I hadn't stained because I wasn't aware they'd be showing then I'm planning to do a second coat of shellac in place. We are in the home stretch on this part of the closet project.

It's hard not to start moving into this space.

Jeff's closet shelves - obviously some picking up is in order

Jeff's closet double hang

Sharon's closet double hang

Excuse the poor pictures. We just don't have the technology to get a good picture. Once Sharon's closet is cleaned up, we should be able to get a better picture in there because the room is pretty big.

Closet Progress

Despite my lack of posts since last Friday, we are still working on the house. I don't tend to wear my little camera anymore and I've been too busy/lazy to take pictures of our current projects in progress.

Eric came again on Monday and helped Jeff cut the rest of the wood for the closet built-ins. The plan is to finish both sides of Jeff's closet and just the hanging side of mine. We'll come back to the cubes in my closet after the chicken coop is finished.

Rather than installing it all and then staining in place, we decided to cut the wood then stain outside or in the garage. I was prepping the wood for that project today, but then I asked Jeff to reach me a tub of shellac on top of the workbench that was way out of my reach. Anyway, the lid was not properly on the tub and it spilled everywhere: down Jeff's front, all over the workbench, all over the fir propped up against the wall, etc., etc. Let's just say, Jeff was not pleased.

So, it turns out today was the day we finally found motivation to work on cleaning the garage. We restacked the cherry tree boards along the back wall and pulled out the last bits of the salvaged douglas fir to take to Willow Classic Woodworking for planing and now we're working on figuring out how to arrange the rest of the stuff so that we can get to it when we need it without having to move everything else around it.

We were planning to have the closet boards stained by Friday so we could have Eric back to help us install them, but with this garage cleaning detour, we might have to push it a day or two. I hope not.

This is approximately what that side of the garage looked like, but it was a bit worse when we started today.

Here is the back corner this evening. We still have lots more cleaning to do, but there is a lot more space in there to work now.

Closet Shelves

Today found us out in the garage again, pawing through the huge pile of salvaged douglas fir trying to sort out the closet wood. Jeff managed to cut down the edge-joined pieces so they fit on the support boards we installed last winter. (Has it really been 8 months? That's embarrassing.)

The original plan was to cut the boards down and then stain them out in the garage and then install them, but Jeff said he likes the lighter color shelves, so I think we may just shellac them as is. (Excuse the slightly blurry picture; I need to get a tripod.)

I worked on stripping paint on more salvaged baseboards so we can install those on the hanging side. I clearly have gotten out of practice as my wrist was feeling quite done after using the heat gun to strip only two of these old boards. I'll work on more tomorrow.

More Wood Planing

Jeff and I scheduled another appointment with Eric out at Willow Classic Woodworking to plane the rest of that giant pile of salvaged douglas fir. When the pile was delivered, it looked like this. We didn't know what we were going to do with it, but it turns out we paid just over a $1/foot for old growth 1x12 douglas fir. I'm glad we did not pass up this deal.

Yesterday we finished chopping it all down into pieces that would fit in the back of our pickup to haul out to Eric's shop for cleaning up. We had quite the truckload. We also brought one of our doors that needed some repair. The truck was pretty full.

I am constantly amazed by how gorgeous this wood is once it's been cleaned up. Yes, quite a lot of it has knots, but overall, it is quite nice wood.

Here is one dramatic example of a before and after.

We decided to go ahead and process the rest of the wood so we could turn it into the cube side of my closet. It's probably not the absolute best wood for the job, but we just really needed to free up the floor space in the garage so we can get our storage emptied.

Tragically, quite a few of these boards got cut into narrower pieces because we designed these cubes to be 15 inches deep and these boards were around 11 inches wide so we needed to cut some narrow pieces to edge glue them together. 

We won't get back to this project before next Thursday as we're cleaning up the house and yard. Hopefully early next week we'll finally get to the next step of this never-ending closet project.