Purple wasn’t going to happen in this house – I’m the only girl here (if you don’t count one of the cats). So I was about to decline, but then I thought about it a bit more…and thought maybe I could paint our closet purple. Hmmm...
I initially think of a little girl’s room when I think of that color (my Dad painted my walls a lovely lilac when I was a kid), but the more I thought about it the more I realized it could go quite sophisticated.
So I was on a mission to make purple work. My biggest criteria when picking out the color was that it didn’t scream GIRL. This is my husband’s closet too. So I tried to go with a gray purple instead of a pinky purple, if that makes any sense.
I’m not sure if I’ve shown you this before photo yet – let me assure you that this was after I had cleaned up. Imagine this, but ten times worse, and oh yeah…you couldn’t see the floor:
The first step was to tear out the baseboards and install the cabinets for the new storage system. I shared that update with you here. Yes, I used kitchen cabinets for this project. Just call me the crazy cabinet lady – all I can do is agree with you.
I went with those for a few reasons – they were cheap (at least cheaper than a regular closet system), they were already built (so no assembly required) and they were deep – 24 inches to be exact. But the biggest reason was that they had drawers and doors I could close.
I decided on my colors and the plan started to come together:
I went with Spatial White on the cabinets and Exclusive Plum on the walls. The plum color is actually the Sherwin-Williams color of the year – I’m on trend and didn’t even know it. :)
I went with the ProClassic paint for the cabinets because I’ve had such good luck with it:
I did a semi-gloss finish and it covered great as always. One coat of primer and two coats of Spatial White later and they were done:
The finish is great – I didn’t even use a brush to paint the cabinet doors this time. Just rolled it into the crevices and the paint leveled out wonderfully. I added simple $2 handles to each cabinet when it was dry.
So for the walls I wanted to go with something that would be very forgiving. Over the years I’ve moved the wire shelves all over the place in there so there were a TON of holes. We stopped counting at 100, seriously. And they were the big honkin’ ones from the closet system anchors too.
The Cashmere paint is supposed to cover well and hide imperfections on the wall:
My husband was out of town (funny how that always happens) so my sister came over and we knocked the closet out in a few hours:
That’s me in my post-Zumba glory, don’t be jealous.
I’ve done this enough now that I’m pretty good at cutting in on the ceiling and around trim, but cutting in horizontally on the baseboards is still tricky. (I have to contort myself just so.) So it was helpful that I removed the base:
After a few more small projects that I’ll go over soon, the room finally came together. I absolutely, positively LOVE it:
I can't even believe it’s the same room. I cannot express to you how much better it functions.
My mess up when measuring for the cabinets actually worked out quite well. Now that middle section is a great little vanity area:
I raised that middle cabinet off the ground to match the other ones so I ended up with a stool height countertop. That cabinet holds off season shoes and my heels that I rarely wear – so I don’t mind that I’ll have to move the chair to get to them since it will be so infrequent.
How fun is this?:
The plum color is SO beautiful! I'm so excited I got purple now. :) It definitely changes in different light. The vanity area wall looks a little lighter than the other walls.
Here’s one side of the closet ready for paint – see all the holes?:
Let me tell you how fun THAT was, filling all of those!
Here it is again with the paint AND the new light:
The new light fixture makes a HUGE difference in here. It's hard to tell in the before pic, but the old fixture just lit up three areas in the room, not the whole room overall.
It’s actually so bright I had to put it on a dimmer:
On dark winter mornings it will be nice to have soft light in here. I have another plan for even more light in here, stay tuned for that. :)
I’m so thrilled with this space but the to do list is not done. I still need to build the shelves on each side above the drawers --they’ll give us even more storage. I’m making the tall units even more storage-friendly with some more shelves and pull out drawers. And I hope to replace the wire shelving for our clothes someday too.
But for now, we’re enjoying a space that functions a MILLION times better than it used to, and it’s pretty. When this room was a dysfunctional mess I used to dread walking into it every morning. It’s amazing what it does for your day when the closet it organized and stays that way:
You can see the necklace organizer that hangs on the wall to the right here. I made that after I took these pics. :)
My husband has thanked me no less than ten times for working on this room -- it really has made a big difference for us. Here's another reminder of the before:
And the same space afterwards, with a some plum paint and storage:
It has truly changed our days, I can’t believe the difference some organization makes! I SO love how it turned out. Kitchen cabinets -- I heart you. I’ll share more details and additional progress soon!
For now, check out the other "purple" bloggers today -- a girl's bedroom at Curbly and a chair redo at Recycle Consign and Design. You can see all of the fabulous projects of various colors at the Sherwin-Williams page -- SWPaintingWeek.com.
Have a GREAT weekend! The weather is supposed to be fantastic here!
This post was sponsored by Sherwin-Williams and I was compensated for this post. All opinions and words are my own.
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