Okay! It’s week four of the One Room Challenge and I’m finally cooking with, well, not quite gas, but maybe some electricity? The closet is mostly done! All painted green, closet furniture built and installed. I have to say I totally forgot what working on a room we haven’t renovated is like.
When we bought the house we spent the first two months after getting the keys ripping out the really gross kitchen while we still lived in our apartment. It took us two full years to renovate the kitchen because we were doing it at the same time as the living room, dining room, sunroom, and main bedroom. Also, once we actually moved into the house, we realized how filthy the closets were and we couldn’t really unpack without halting everything else and redoing them.
This parlor closet and our main coat closet were the two closets in the best shape and we ended up just shoving things into them while we tore out my closet and the Man of Action’s closet and scrubbed, painted, and built entirely new shelving systems in each. From scratch. This was before Michigan had an IKEA. Then we did the same with the linen closet. The previous owners of this house had lived here for 50 years and didn’t really update or, well, clean it seems, for the last couple of decades. Then they rented the house and it got beat up during that process too. We inherited closets and cabinets full of old sundries and SO MUCH DIRT.
I had forgotten quite how gross everything was. This parlor closet brought it all back. As soon as I started cleaning the walls and woodwork, the smell almost undid me. Stale smoke and musty dust and…mold, maybe? Gag. It was bad. And this was one of the cleaner closets! How did we deal with a whole house like this? (We were SO young and excited to own a house, that’s how.)
So, yeah, cleaning was not fun. Neither was deglossing the woodwork—I feel like the varnish on the wood holds onto smells more than the plaster walls do. Even after I got the primer on (I used Stix primer), it still did not smell great in that room. Better, but not great. Thankfully after two coats of the Benjamin Moore Aura in Weeping Willow, the room has finally lost that musty old smell. It looks pretty good too.
We did have to patch quite a few dents and dings in the wall, and I caulked gaps, crack, and holes from nails in the woodwork after I primed. Both the walls and woodwork are not perfect, by any means, but I feel like that adds character. Plus it’s just a closet. I always have to police my perfectionist tendencies or I’d never complete anything. Done is better than perfect. (Repeat to myself over and over.)
This IKEA Elvarli storage unit was not my first choice for this space. I had specced a different unit a year ago when I started scoping things out and planning. (I’m a planner—I plan ahead. Like, years ahead. I am always percolating new plans.) But IKEA discontinued it. So I picked out a freestanding shelving unit with drawers. But when I went to get it last week, guess what? Not in stock. So, I pivoted to Elvarli. There was a few scary moments when we started to build this when it looked like it was way too big for the space. And my stomach dropped when I realized that I had measured the closet without taking into account the 1.5 inches of woodwork sticking out at the bottom of each wall. Mostly because I couldn’t see it and didn’t remember it was there. I mean, you saw those pics, right?
But despite that error in calculation, the Elvarli fits perfectly with more than enough room to fully open the drawers. I was biting my nails waiting to move the IKEA Alex in there, certain it was too tight to open the drawers. Because it’s a lot deeper than the Elvarli system, it has to fit in the closet door opening to be able to pull the drawers completely open. But alas, everything is fine there too. Phew.
The Elvarli drawers will hold sewing and craft supplies that are too big for the Alex unit. The shelves will hold folded fabric. And the rack to the side will hold long winter coats. Our main coat closet holds our shorter coats and my (too many) pairs of tall boots. Longer coats get really jammed up in that closet. This closet will let them breathe a little more.
Side note: Remember when I said I was keeping the window shade and replacing the old rickety light fixture? Ha! Good times. Also, yeah, no. Once I touched and smelled the shade, it needed to get out immediately. It was super grimy. And then when the Man got the light off the wall, we realized there was no way any new light was going to work in this space. The box is placed in front of a stud and it’s super shallow and there’s no way to get a new box in there without moving the light and completely rewiring it. So the old light is going back on. It’s been thoroughly cleaned and Rub-n-Buffed to a nice deep gold.
I’ve got to say I LOVE this fully green closet. Remember my inspiration images? To refresh your memory:
This is the calming green part of the renovation. I am so happy with it. But we should probably talk about painting the woodwork. I know this is a polarizing topic. And I used to be fully on board with the sentiment that woodwork should never be painted. But. I came to slowly realize that I do not like the heavy, dark orange, stripe-y oak we have in our house. In fact, I hate it. It makes me miserable. Orange is my least favorite color ever. And though it works fine with the dark blue on the living room walls, I could never make it work in the dining room, which is currently chartreuse. (My theory there was if I made the colors clash it would create a good tension. Not so much.) The wood color puts such a limit on the color you can paint the walls. And I don’t do beige or white walls, which is probably what works best with that orange oak look. That or grays.
There was much debate in this bungalow about painting the woodwork, even here in the closet. The Man of Action is very attached to the wood. He has agreed I can paint this closet and the parlor because I use this room to work from and he wants me to be happy. But he is not happy. And that upsets me, of course. He says he knows he’ll end up thinking the room is beautiful in the end, but he’ll still be sad the wood is painted. I’m not sure how to argue with that because he just said IT WILL LOOK BEAUTIFUL. To me that’s the whole argument. Also, I can’t really argue with a sentimental attachment. Logic and reason can’t usually compete with emotional reactions. But let me try to put my thoughts on painting woodwork into words.
I’ve come to realize I am happiest in my house when I’m surrounded by deep colors and patterns. (The Man agrees with this—he doesn’t like beige or white either.) When you saddle me with a color and pattern I do not like at all, I feel restricted and unhappy. Truly. I’ve tried working with the orange striped wood with mixed success. It’s frustrating me. I have visions of pretty-ness and I can’t make them happen. That is a nightmare to me. This is my emotional reaction.
The logical side of me also has an argument: The wood is a FINISH. I am not removing the woodwork from the house—it’s not being erased. It’s just changing color. We all move into apartments and houses and want to decorate to reflect our interests and tastes. If we aren’t attached to the drywall or plaster or even the original historical paint on the walls and we paint over it, why should we be so attached to woodwork? Why is this thought of so differently?
My theory is that for decades (centuries?) wood has symbolized upscale workmanship. So many Gilded Age homes were heavily paneled in wood (entire rooms of wood brought over from centuries-old aristocratic estates in England) that it became popular in the states in the early 20th century to add heavy woodwork to the public rooms of a house to show your affluence. Unfortunately, the wood most commonly added was oak, not the fine walnut or mahogany of the truly affluent homes. At this time the Arts and Crafts movement also happened and that definitely had an attachment to natural surfaces like wood. (Although I would argue it isn’t natural if you stain and varnish it. Again, that stain and varnish are FINISHES that can and should change with your own personal taste.) Our house is not a Craftsman bungalow, it’s Colonial Revival, complete with five large Classical columns on our front porch. The woodwork in this house should not be thought of as part of the Craftsman movement—my point being that it doesn’t really have any historical significance. The wood was just there to impress people with the owner’s aspirations to wealth. It’s the poser of finishes.
Some people may also just like orange. I don’t understand it (what is wrong with you?), but I admit it’s a thing. The Man of Action falls into this category, but I think it’s really some attachment to historical significance that forms his opinion on this subject. I hope to change his mind, but I also know I might not be able to. I might be stuck with something I truly hate in the living and dining rooms. Such is the compromise of marriage. At least I’ll be able to sit in my parlor office and love the view in that room.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk on woodwork.
Anyway, onto the room now. I am currently removing wallpaper, which I hope to have done by the end of the weekend. I’ve decided to use a sprayer to paint all the woodwork, rather than a brush. That should speed things up. And since we are wallpapering, overspray won’t be an issue really. I’ll have to tape off the ceiling and floor. The Man is going to remove all doors and windows and I’ll spray those outside. Keep your fingers crossed that the temperature doesn’t drop too low for this. Otherwise I have to figure out a way to do it indoors.
