What We Did On Break

The day after Christmas, we drove up to

Illinois (14 hours) to spend some time with our

middle daughter's family and help them

renovate their heavily used coat closet.

This isn't actually the real "before" as Jaysa and 

Mike had already removed the folding doors and

moved all the winter coats to another closet.

The picture below shows how far we got before

we had to come back home. We call this phase one

as we plan to finish the bottom half next trip up.

We took this old bench up for them to use

temporarily until we can build in a full bench

with room below for more baskets.

Here's some pictures of the work in progress:

 Painting in a small space is always a challenge.

It got even more crowded when Superman

(almost 5) decided to lend us his superpowers

by helping us paint. He soon lost interest after
just 10 minutes of helping put on the second coat.

 Lucky for us, his little sister (18 months) was way

too busy running down the hallway the other way.

 Thankfully, she wasn't that interested

in the work going on at the opposite end!

 Wild Bill (AKA Grampy) installed a

wide board on the top for adult coats and a 

smaller one on bottom for the kid's.

  Above the adult's board, Grampy installed a

shelf wide enough to hold baskets. There was a

gap between them, so we decided to add

some trim to cover the gap.

We weren't able to bring all the tools and

saws we needed to do a perfect job, but

we found we could depend on Lowes and

Home Depot to do basic cuts for us.

 Luckily, Grampy brought his power drill as

Jaysa's wasn't strong enough to install the hooks.

He gave Jaysa a quick lesson on controlling

the speed, and she installed the hooks where

she wanted them.

When Grampy saw this next picture he

thought Jaysa looked really determined to

get those screws in and under his breath

he said "straight in Jaysa, straight in."

  Are you wondering why we didn't paint

everything before putting up the hooks?

 Well...snow and ice was forecasted and we

needed to leave early. In fact, it started

snowing as the hooks were being installed.

 Little Livvie stopped running long enough

to model her hook...

 Here's a shot of the trim all painted.

Lowe's didn't have enough hooks for the sides

of the closet so Jaysa is waiting on them.

On our next trip, we plan to help Jaysa add

more trim at the bottom and top of the boards,

along with building in a permanent bench.

Our daughter seems to have a problem

picking paint colors just like her mama!

Here's a shot of the outside of the closet,

which is in the laundry room:

I've heard Rome wasn't built in a day.

So many colors, so little time...

Here's another look at phase one.

When we got home, Santa Claus ordered

Jaysa her own drill just like Grampy's so

she'll be able to finish the hooks and cover

the top of the old bench, as well as help build
the new bench when the time comes.


The wall color inside the closet is
Benjamin Moore's Hale Navy and the white
is Behr's Swiss Coffee in their paint and primer
mix. The baskets are from IKEA, which we
borrowed from the kid's playroom to use until
Jay finds something she likes better.

Thanks for dropping in!

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