Diary of a Walk-in Closet

Every girl dreams of a huge walk-in closet to house all of her beautiful clothes and shoes.  Or maybe that's just me... either way, when I moved into the apartment that I now call home, I saw that there was the perfect little room that could become that walk-in closet.  Over the past few months I have made that dream into a reality!  Here is where our story begins:

This was what the room looked like before we started.  The shelves and chair rail had to come out before California Closets could come and put everything in.  A word about California Closets: fabulous.  Everything about my experience with them was perfection.  Tamra, my consultant, was thorough and accommodating; she listened to what I wanted and presented several options and prices.  And my closet plans came to me via email in a lovely floor plan so that I could reference them as I planned my next steps.  I would highly recommend them to anyone!  So we took out the shelves and then had to patch, sand, and primer.

After all of that (which was a LOT of hard work and a LOT of dust!), it was time for the next phase: wallpaper!  I had had a vision that a boldly printed wallpaper would look amazing behind all of the shelves of my new closet.  So I set out finding a beautiful black and white print and found one from Graham and Brown.  I loved their selection of wallpaper.  And voila! - after another long day of work, we had a fully wallpapered room.

a closeup of my wallpaper

I must say I was extremely happy with how the wallpaper turned out.  It was exactly what I envisioned from the start.  And for anyone who is wondering, wallpapering is not for the faint of heart.  It is serious work, it took us 10 hours to wallpaper my small room!  

And then the day came: my installation.  Here are the results, with descriptions of the walls of the closet.  

 

a view from the doorway

 

the right side, all shelves and drawers

the left side, hanging space and shelves above

that same side, once i put everything in its place, lots of gorgeous hanging space, and shelves above for shoes.  

the right side, with sweaters on the shelves, an area for jewelry, and handbags and wraps in the cubby section.  still lots more room to grow.  time to shop!  

So there you have it - the dream closet!  I have resisted the temptation to sleep in there so far, but I still can't believe how great it turned out.