My One And Only Linen Closet

Hi.

I know, I know.

It’s been three weeks.

My mom has made me pretty aware of that fact.

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So, in light of the new year, I’ve been working on purging and organizing.

Or maybe it’s nesting?

Anyway, as you might suspect, a house built in 1875 comes with a lot of things, but large or multiple closets is not one of them.

I have one large closet upstairs.

Which is mandatory.

Because our bathroom is this size.

So it became the catchall for toys and bathroom stuff……and toys.

And it was yucky.

Dark and dingy.

And there’s like this gross particle board stuff happening.

So I took it all down.

And found 67 layers of wallpaper.

And quite a bit of soot.

{Thanks to an inspection when we first purchased the house we know there was a flue fire at some point.}

{But, no money or hidden treasures.}

And underneath it all was the original rough hewn boards.

And, wait for it, a bead board ceiling!

I painted all the trim and ceiling white.

{After one dear friend came and helped take the wallpaper off the ceiling.  I mean, who wallpapers over wood?!}

I also decided to white wash the walls.

That way the grain of the wood would still show through but the orange of it was gone.

I also re-did these canisters my friend picked up for me from IKEA.

I painted them with some chalk board paint, Bryce drilled a hole in the top, and put on some drawer pulls.

Painted trim, white washed walls, striped floor.

With blue shelves.

Stocked.

I know it looks pretty clutter-y, but all of the stuff was stashed in various rooms in various drawers.

And now it’s all in one tidy place.

I had an extra ladder piece that I outfitted with some quilts.  They were on the bottom shelf in hall way where the books are and they were just neglected.

One last thing.

That’s a vintage Kirby vacuum that I picked up at a garage sale this last summer for $10.

The belt broke and for Christmas Bryce replaced in for me.

And, guys,

it has a carpet shampoo attachment!

So, yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

The instruction manual has a nice looking lady in pearls and a dress carefully dumping the dirt onto some newspapers on her living room floor.

And I’m  wearing a stained shirt, huffing and puffing, encouraging yelling at Bennett to stay back while I empty the dirt on my living room floor using some papers I dug out of the recycling.

Yup, we’re kindred spirits.

And one of the best parts?  I spent $2.50 on the whole thing.

{I also realized that I may or may not have a hand-embroidered-pillow-case-collecting-problem.  The struggle is real, people.} 

Katie