Do you ever feel like you spend all of your time putting things away?  I swear I spend hours of my life each week organizing our house.  And by organizing I mean moving stuff from space to space, avoiding any actual de-cluttering or taking care of something that needs to be done (like paying that bill that’s been sitting on the kitchen table for weeks).  One of my favorite spots to stash all of our crap is the 1st floor hall closet.  It’s centrally located between the bathroom, the bedrooms, and the kitchen, which means I throw everything in there…for the bathroom, the bedrooms, and the kitchen.  Here’s what it looked like at the beginning of this weekend -

Oh yes, in the same closet we have bath towels, a bike helmet, pots and pans, air filters, paint supplies, and a picnic blanket.  And this is after I emptied half of its contents and transferred them to another closet for no good reason.  So after viewing some pretty closet pictures on Pinterest, I got inspired enough to finally give this closet the love and organization it deserves.  Step 1 - A good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint.

After removing the shelves, vacuuming a good amount of dog hair, and finding a couple mice poops (um, disgusting…), I painted the shelf ledges and then taped before I painted the walls.  Let me just tell you how fun it was to tape all the ledges…

After a couple quick coats of Filtered Shade by Valspar, I was done!

It’s pretty subtle, but compliments the light yellow paint in the hallway.  Check back soon for Step 2…after looking at these pictures maybe it should involve installing a light in the closet!