Making the most of small spaces - Closet Reveal

I have talked before on the blog about the importance of creating a home where your family thrives. Our home is the place we can relax, recharge and enjoy our family. A place we can be the most ourselves.

I think home design is so much more than just buying pillows or art. It is just as much about form and function. How can we arrange our home in such a way that it functions best for us and our family? Home design is a beautiful mix of practicality and beauty. Just as when we look at a leaf we can see mathematical symmetry amid its natural beauty - it is simultaneously art and science. So, too is home design.

Creating a home that works does not always mean adding more space or spending lots of money. I want to share with you our recent master bedroom closet project. I posted some photos on social media and got a lot of interest, so I wanted to share what we did. Even if you are not going to DIY your master closet, I want to show you the process we went through to design a space to work better for us. I think it is possible to design your home to work more effectively for your family.

When we were house hunting we had two houses in our city that were contenders. The house we bought, and another house 1000 square feet bigger, with a huge walk in closet. We ended up deciding on the smaller home. The backyard was exactly what we were looking for and we loved the neighborhood. The house also had more character. It felt like us. Our house was not a fixer upper by any means, but there were definitely some improvement projects we wanted to tackle as we had time and money.

One of the places we wanted to upgrade was our closet.

This is what it looked like before. We made it work the first year and a half but it was definitely crowded. We just had enough hanger space for our shirts and my dresses. We had a freestanding closet outside in the bedroom that we used for our pants, extra jackets and shoes.

It wasn't a necessity to upgrade our closet but I knew we could utilize the closet space so much better. I had done some Pinterest searching and found a closet design I thought could help maximize our smaller closet and eliminate the freestanding closet - giving us more space!

I had my husband look over the plans. He created a budget for the closet as well as figured out the approximate time it would take him to do the project. In January we had the time and the money to do it, so we got to work!

After taking everything out, we painted the closet the same colors we had recently painted our room.

Meanwhile, my husband was building the closet organizer.

I am going to do a whole post on how he built this, so stay tuned!

The closet organizer did exactly what we had hoped - it gave us more space. We moved our pants from the freestanding closet to the new organizer.

These bottom shelves were the perfect spot to put our extra shoes.

We moved the freestanding closet out of our room, giving us more space in our bedroom. We sorted our clothes into the current season and out of season. I found these large bins at Hobby Lobby. We put all of our out of season clothes in the bins, leaving the rack space for our in season shirts and my dresses. The organization has completely decluttered our closet.

Some things we kept the same, but just upgraded. I got all new hooks. And we got a new light fixture. After painting walls, I think changing out hardware and light fixtures is the easiest and cheapest way to upgrade the look and style of a room.

We absolutely love our closet. It has gone from an overwhelming space to a place we love to enter. We didn't need to add on to the house to give us more space. With some research and creative thinking we were able to transform a cluttered and overwhelming space into a place with strategic organization. We also added some personal touches to make it beautiful and our own style.