Tuesday, February 1, 2011

No Closet Solution for Kid's Room

In designing our son's nursery, I had to work around the huge obstacle of there not being a closet in his room. As we live in a charming 1920's home, this dilemma is unfortunately very common. Our "master" bedroom doesn't even have a closet, so we have to use the one in the hallway. Not the most convenient, but I suppose that's the trade off for charm. After maybe a second of consideration, it was evident that there was no way we could fit another person's clothes in there, especially little tiny ones that would only get swallowed by our abundance of fabrics. So, Solution: Turn a bookshelf into a closet!

BEFORE:

AFTER: 
Again, by using the oh-so-fantastic Craigslist, I found an old mission-style bookshelf for only $50. I wanted the piece to really have life, so I scoured the internet and stores to try to find vintage wall paper that I could use to line the back of the piece to give it a pop. This search soon became a mission. First, wallpaper is extremely expensive when looking at buying rolls. I looked at Goodwill to try to find a discounted roll but had no luck. I only needed about 2 1/2 yards, so buying a $40-$100 roll was ridiculous. Luckily, I found a vendor on Etsy.com that actually sells vintage wall paper by the yard. The one I chose for this piece, the orange fern print from the '60s, was only $3/yard....much better. After choosing the wallpaper, the only things left to pick out were the paint color, dowel and metal pole supports. If you are using leftover paint for this project, it really becomes a low-cost furniture conversion as the dowel and metal pole supports in total cost about $5. My husband applied the wallpaper to the back of the piece with spray adhesive and also added a protective clear coating on top of the painted portions to prevent scratching. I am quite happy with the way it turned out. It easily fit into an awkward nook in the room and provides lots of storage to hang clothes as well as have some folded away into baskets that will sit on the shelves. I also plan to designate the bottom storage with the door to hide those toys that seem to accumulate at a rapid pace for kids. Plus, it's at the perfect height for him to be able to learn to put his own toys away!

4 comments:

  1. What kind of metal pole supports did you use? I'm doing the same thing in my nursery but am having trouble in how to secure a pole in place. So you used a wooden dowel rod, and did your screws from the pole supports don't stick out on the outside? Thanks for any advice!

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  2. Hi Sarita! I used Metal Pole Supports found at Home Depot. They are made by Everbilt and were only around $3. I chose the Satin Brass Finish for my project, but I do believe they have other finishes. The pack I got includes 2 supports and the screws. The screws are very short, hence how they did not puncture through the outside of my bookcase. I did use a wooden dowel rod as well. Best of luck with your project, and let me know if you have any more questions!

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  3. How did you paint this? Did you use primer first? So cute!!

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  4. Ps. Your famous lol, I found you here: http://redtri.com/bump-baby/diy-budget-nursery-decoration/slide/8/#slide

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