Tackle it Tuesday #6: Walk in Closet Upgrade

My husband and I live in a small one bedroom apartment, and the trickiest part about living here is finding enough space to function without wanting to kill one another. With all of our stuff in a small place, it is a constant battle keeping this place clean enough to keep from feeling frustrated and claustrophobic.

Fortunately, as seen here, this apartment has 2 smaller closets and one quite large walk in closet. With some clever organization, we've been able to dedicate the walk in solely to storage/office space.

This picture was taken almost 2 years ago when I was living here alone. Since then, the closet has become MUCH more packed with stuff. On most days, the desk was completely unusable and we relied mostly on our laptops for computer use.

Originally, my husband and I only planned on living here for a little while before purchasing our first home. Unfortunately, we have recently realized that this dream is much further away than we originally thought, and we are going to need to be here longer than anticipated. I knew that to stay here without going crazy was going to take a few alterations. I LOVE to craft, and have hated that my only hard surface was our coffee table. Not only is it a back breaker to work on, but it leaves my living room cluttered with crap every time I get into a project, and renders the coffee table unusable. Given that we have no space for a kitchen table and have to eat at the coffee table, this simply was not working, and kept me from starting many projects I'd considered doing. 

A few weeks ago, I started brainstorming some closet options with my good friend Jessica. She gave some great suggestions, and between the two of us it was decided an L-shaped desk would be best. I wasn't finding anything online that seemed to fit my needs, or budget, so Jessica decided we try to build it ourselves. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to come out, but I'm so glad we gave it a try.

We started at Ikea, where we bought table legs for $3.50 each. They are quite sturdy, and have 5 places to be screwed in to any table top. We then went to Home Depot and bought a 96"x48" piece of finished lumber. It has a nice smooth veneer on it, which makes it perfect for a desk. They cut it up to our dimensions for free, and even helped us load it back on to the cart. Not only that, but the giant piece of wood was supposed to cost $20, but since it didn't have a UPC, and the lady didn't want to leave her register, she only charged us $7.57. Score!

$50 and a few hours later, I now have an AWESOME work space!. Now, just 2 days later, this is how I've managed to arrange all my things:

The two 3 drawer bins will eventually get moved out of here completely. I just didn't have a place to put them in the meantime.

Brian's old bookshelf to store my things:

AWESOME Ikea organizers to save desk space:

 More bins above the computer to save desk space:

The top of the closet could still use a little work, lol. I'll get to it eventually :)

While at Ikea, Jessica and I also both bought tall bookshelves - hers in white, mine in black/brown. My husband had outgrown his small one, and needed an upgrade. We found them pre-assembled in the "as is" section of Ikea for a pretty decent discount. Don't ask how we managed to get both of these in her pathfinder....it was quite dangerous and quite illegal, lol.

Don't mind the grainy cell phone shot....he obviously needed the upgrade, as you can see he filled it up pretty immediately. Plus, it allowed me to use his old one in my craft space.

On a final note, I'm happy to say I drafted up this entire blog on my now usable desktop computer. :)

What are you tackling this week?