Organized Closets and Pretty Rooms

Update on the new toilet:
It works wonderfully! It stays so clean I haven't had to clean it. Still looks like no one has used it at all. Sparkling! I wonder if I'll ever have to clean it. Hmmmm.
*

Love Bunny and I had a pretty big closet in our house in California as we had a second story addition put on several years after we bought it. There were several homes in our neighborhood that had second stories but we went with a very innovative contractor when we decided to do ours.

All of the additions we had seen in the neighborhood had gone through a part of their dining room or through the garage by adding a flight of stairs. Thus, this took some space from their dining room or two-car garage and it looked horrible as it didn't look particularly integrated into the house. We needed all the space we could get in our garage because we park our cars in the garage. Always have and always will. That's what garages are for—cars. I have known and know people today who have never been able to park their cars in the garage because they use it for storage. Hubs and I don't adhere to that philosophy. If you have that much stuff, then you need to have a garage sale, give it to thrift stores or throw it out!

Anyway, our second story contained a huge train room about 16' x 14' and a master bedroom and bath for us. We had a closet that was about 14' x 8' and loved it. (At this point in my life, I was a clothes horse and was spending about $8,000-$10,000 a year on clothes in 1980s dollars, and Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstroms were my favorite stores.) Our previous master bedroom downstairs had been remodeled 10' out the front with a beautiful three-sided bay window so it was large also. That became a family room for us. But when the remodel on that bedroom was done a few years before the second story addition, we remodeled the master bath and the closet was extended about 10' out also. We had California Closets come in and put in all custom shelving in that closet. But when we did the second story, we decided to do it ourselves as the previous closet had cost us $1,400 in 1980s money! We did it for about two or three hundred in the bigger closet upstairs.What our contractor designed and did for us was take out our heater on the first floor, use that for the stairs, adding a landing to the top where we went left to the train room and right to our master bedroom. The heater was then relocated upstairs in a space on the train room. It was over the bottom of the stairs. It turned out exquisitely because the contractor measured intricately, consulted us on it and made it happen. I was delighted as it looked like it had never been a remodel. It just looked like it was built that way originally. That remodel was the talk of the neighborhood. Every night we'd see people out the window looking in trying to figure out what was going on and even asking to come in and view it. I'm so glad we picked that man to do the remodel.

Our closet looked nothing like this one though. While I think it's lovely, ours was even better.
Cute!

I know without a doubt that hubs and I could not fit in this narrow kitchen together, but it sure is cute. Must be a small cottage.

Pretty in blues.

Another stunning wall color in green.

Pretty eye candy for you. I just absolutely love candy for my eyes.

Cozy little space.

This reminds me of Mexico and sitting out on our patio at Los Tules in Puerto Vallarta.

Definitely my kind of patio or porch.

Isn't this towel sweet?

Wouldn't you love to have lunch in this quaint tea room? Oooooh, I would.

Easy, easy thing to do with extra frames you have around the house. I plan on making some this week actually.

*

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off. And very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

~*~
Photos courtesy of tumblr, pinterest and google images.