Striving for ELFA excellence...

Okay so The Container Store is one of the best/worse things that has happened in my life the past week! My mom and I took a shopping trip to Atlanta last weekend to visit mainly IKEA and The Container Store; both of which we had never been to! I am pretty sure angels were singing when we walked into both stores.

So, in The Container Store I could not stop swooning over these amazing custom closets that elfa does. They had models set up for a simple 6 foot closet (what I have), a walk in closet, a laundry room, garage, pantry, wrapping station, the list goes on and on. It is so encouraging/disappointing to look at all of these beautiful set ups. I would LOVE to have every closet in my house perfectly organized and custom, but reality has hit me and I know that just is not possible. I keep telling myself those are the types of things to have in a DREAM house not necessarily a FIRST house....

In case you aren't familiar with elfa's awesomeness here are some examples... (I picked simple 6 foot reach in closets but there is SO much more out there)

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Now, that our minds are full of that perfect organized and frankly a little unrealistic vision ( I mean who really has 2 purses, 5 shirts, and 4 dresses?!) lets move on to my attempt to re-organize my closet...

 

 

 

I loved visiting The Container Store, but I wish that I would have had a better plan thought out in my head about what I needed to buy to try and make a custom feel in my closet. I picked up a few things here and there, but I'm not totally happy on the way it all came together.

 

I did buy 3 different products there to attempt this elfa excellence...

1. This closet doubler hanging rack to try and maximize storage place for my hang up clothes (this is when I wish I would have planned out a little better for sure). It was only $9.99 so I decided to get one and try it. It works okay in my closet, but my closet bar is a little too low. I can fit all of my skirts on there but that is about it without them dragging the closet floor. Here is the LINK for the one that I bought
2. The Container Store has a section that is kind of an "as-is" section which does make me nervous but I decided to look. I found two 3 section modular organizers that stand about 20 inches tall and 16 inches wide. They were originally $14.99 each but because they were discontinued the price was dropped to $7.97 each. I bought the two that they had in hopes that they would fit perfect at the top of my closet. AGAIN This is another time I wish I would have planned better; they are too keep for the shelf at the top of my closet but they work well in the floor of my closet for my Pj's and shorts
3. I happen to see the cutest little closet dividers while I was shopping for 99 cents each! I decided to buy 6 of them for my closet to add a little personality and to make it feel a little more custom to my specific closet. Here is the LINK for them.

 

So,  I didn't really have a for sure plan, just a hodge podge of randomness to try and make a custom closet look. I decided that I wanted to paint the inside of my closet because it was just a plain, boring, scuffed up white closet. So, I decided on a nice shade by Valspar because I had a Lowes Gift Card. I usually buy Behr at Home Depot, so I was nervous but it turned out nice. I bought THESE awesome 4 inch white vinyl polka dots to add to the back of my closet to make a little statement.

 

 

Here is how the paint and polka dots turned out.....

 



 

 

 

To make my personalized closet dividers all I needed was:

 

 

 This is where you can get really creative and make it your own. You can use fabric instead of paper if you would like, you could paint the actual plastic divider, really the possibilities are endless. Simply trace the divider on your paper, cut out then glue it to the divider using a paintbrush and mod podge. I then decided to cut out white cardstock rectangles to make my labels. (This is where a label maker would REALLY come in handy...I've always wanted one of those). I decided to just tape my labels to my dividers because when it is time to switch out my summer for winter clothes I want to be able to just simply change the label and not buy new dividers.

 

 

When it came to putting my clothes and shoes back in the closet this is where it really started getting tough. I have WAY too many clothes; I mean more than enough. I finally decided that it would benefit me more to be able to actually SEE all of my clothes instead of having them all jammed in there. So really in this situation less is definitely more. It is going to be so much easier to pick out outfits for the week when I'm not stressed about trying to find something and I can't. It was also incentive to not fill up the closet as much because I want some of the polka dots to show through!

 

 

 

Here is a picture of my closet double bar...

 

 

 

So, all in all I would MUCH rather have an elfa organized closet, but I didn't spend a lot of money on this project (about $60) and I am MUCH happier now when I open my closet and much less stressed. And really that is what it is all about! Maybe one day in my dream home I can invest in a lot of elfa products!!!!