Closet Addition

Do you remember last week when I blogged about Google Sketch Up? Well it really worked! During this past Labor Day weekend, John and I made a trip to Ikea to buy an Expedit shelf. Originally, we thought that using multiple shelving units hung together would be a better option for us just in case we wanted to move things around later. But when we started thinking about hanging the shelves on the wall, we realized that it would be much easier if we were only working with one solid piece, instead of separate pieces. To be honest, the thought of getting the shelves to hang exactly level was too overwhelming. So instead we picked out a 2 x 4 shelving unit and hauled it home. This was probably one of the easiest Ikea pieces that we have put together (and by we, I mean John). It only took him about 30 minutes and the whole thing was together and in the closet!

I love white against our gray walls. And I haven't regretted our gray wall color for even a moment since it went up! It's perfect! I also love the substantial-ness of this Expedit shelving unit. It's weighty and strong and has presence. And I love that it's going to live in our closet. Our closet needed a little bit of sass, and this shelf is the perfect amount of sass.

Anyway, as you can see, we haven't hung it yet. Baby steps, people. But I have started using it since before this my clothes were piled up on the floor along with the shoes.

Since I took this picture, John has moved his clothes out of the dresser and into the empty boxes above. We only purchased one Expedit shelf this weekend because that was all we could afford this month. Although, I did manage to pick up a few baskets while we were at Ikea as well. I picked out a set of 4 baskets for $9.99. They were all different sizes but the price was better than the alternatives. The basket in the photo is being used to hold my undies :) No one needs to see those all strewn about. I'll show you what we did with the other 3 baskets over the next few weeks.

I'm really happy that we took some time to think outside of the "box" and found a non-traditional way to make our closet more functional. Using Google Sketch Up was one of the best things we did. We knew that the shelf would fit inside our closet and we knew that we would love the way it looked, all before actually purchasing the unit. Now that's fabulous!