Thursday 10 February 2011

Nursery Storage Makeover


Huzzah!! The nursery cupboard/closet/wardrobe storage has finally been made over. Behind those doors lies a far more organised and space-efficient, erm, space. The only thing left to do is touch up the bits where the hinges for the old doors were.

Remember what it looked like before?


The louvre doors had been taken off by this point, but they were an awful shade of orange-brown the same as the trim seen here. Couldn't wait to get my tin 'o' white out!

So what was wrong with this space? Where do I start?!
1. It was dirty looking.
2. Not enough shelving.
3. Existing shelves stuck out too far and interfered with anything hanging on the rail.
4. The rail was dirty.
5. Wood parts were cakky orange-brown stained.
6. Doors were the same cakky orange.

So, the first thing we did was take out all of the shelving and reposition making better use of the space. We also added an extra shelf. All the shelves were cut down to a shallower depth, using the containers I am using as drawers as a guide. This left much more space in front for hanging clothes, which now hang on a shiny new chrome rail.

I painted the walls and ceiling with white emulsion and the wood parts with white eggshell. My husband made an excellent job of the doors I think and they look much cleaner and modern than the old louvre doors did. If I can find a photo of the old doors I'll post one later.

Once I'd battled through this pile of all his clothing and other wardrobe fillers...


I was ready to put things back in a more orderly fashion.


Ahhhh... Much better!

I also have a little (lot) more storage in the form of my trusty IKEA Expedit 2x2 unit. 


The boxes inside are "Skubb" and hold so much stuff it's unreal. We use them in the kid's toy storage Expedits downstairs too. 

Top left we have sleepsuits, rompers, and vests. 


Top right is his socks, shoes, dribble bibs, hats and swim things.


Now, because the Skubb boxes are so deep I've used the Skubb drawer dividers inside here to help layer up. Here's what I mean. Take one out and you can see his sleeping bags stored underneath.


The bottom right is trousers.


And the bottom left is another Skubb drawer divider holding his tops with knitwear and fitted sheets underneath.



Let's take another look at my his fab new cupboard...

Before & After


 I'm so proud! :o) Now I just need to put the rest of his hanging items up and we're done. Here's what's in there,

Top left - plastic box containing cloth nappy equipment not currently in use (spare inserts, too girly/big, etc.)
Top right - a plastic container with clothes that are too big right now.
Middle shelves - Green containers on sale for £1.49 each at Dunelm Mill. Clockwise from top left they house: nothing / empty (yey!), spare hangers, stock of baby wipes, spare nursery wallpaper borders.
Bottom shelf - 2 massive Skubb (recurring theme here?) containers with all the clothes that he no longer fits into, which I intend to go through and put on eBay. Sob!
Front - two out of three baskets I've had for ages. Nappies on the left, baby towels on the right.

If you liked this post you might be interested in these ones too:

Our Little Boy's Nursery
Wasted Space to Memo Place
Toy Organisation and Playroom Love
Hidden Mini Office in An IKEA Besta Unit
Master Bedroom Makeover


12 comments:

  1. Looks great! I have a bunch of those white canvas cubes from Ikea as well- and to style them up a bit, I hot glued a stip of ribbon on the handle to coordinate with the scheme I had going in my nursery. It's super easy, and super cheap, and just takes it up a tiny notch in appearances.

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  2. wow, what an amazing difference! Great job!

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  3. This all looks great! So much storage! Gives me lots of ideas for doing our soon to be baby room :)

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  4. Wow Wow. It looks terrific. Love it.

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  5. Thanks for the lovely comments!

    Alexis Anne, that's a brilliant idea! I don't have matching ribbon in my stash, but i'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that now!

    Kristi, glad you got some ideas and massive congratulations on your baby!! :o)

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  6. Holy Moly! That is an AWESOME makeover! So inspirational. Well done!! How did you know what containers to get? Did you wing it at the store or premeasure? My hardest moment is trying to visualize.

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  7. Thanks Shannon! A lot of the containers i already had - the baskets, the skubb in the cupboard and the skubb drawer dividers. The skubb that are in the expedit i just tested in ikea since i bought them at the same time as the unit.

    The green drawer things i bought as a gamble. I saw them on offer and had a lightbulb moment. I knew that for only £1.49 each i coulodn't pass them up and if they didn't fit here i'd use them for something else. I got lucky!

    The plastic tubs in the top were measured before we put the shelving in place so we knew we would be able to store things up there we wouldn't have to access so often. We already had those in the house.

    Loves! x

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  8. Wow! THe closet looks amazing. I love the storage unit too and it's able to hold so much with the storage boxes added. I'm hosting We're ORganized Wednesday through Saturday and would love for you to join the party if you get a chance.

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  9. Blummin eck, i'm late to this, but i will definitely pop by and take a look at this week's We're Organised Wednesday. :o)

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  10. I've just found this site! Amazing. I need help - first with my storage and then with my whole life!!
    Will start with airing cupboard!

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Thank you so much for leaving a comment. I love hearing from anyone who comes by to read my blog, and i try to respond to every comment. You all help me feel motivated to continue with this project. Loves! x

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