How I spent my Christmas Vacation

I decided, as a new year began, that I needed to start documenting our home projects.  I love improving things in my home, and because we don't have very much money, it forces a gal to think creatively about how to go about it in a budget-friendly way.

We have lived in our house for over a year now (since October 2011), and there is a lot I have done in that past year.  I may from time to time revisit those projects, just to, you know, show off.  I'm proud of what I have accomplished, I'm not afraid to say it!

So:  How I spent my Christmas vacation.  I hosted Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but let's talk about really getting hands dirty.  I took on a pretty small project, but I'm really happy with the outcome.

Caveat: I took all these photos with my iPhone, and I am sad to say they didn't turn out all that great.  I apologize for the blurriness!

The project: sprucing up the linen closet!  I was inspired by this blog post, which I came across via Pinterest.

Before--MEH.

First of all, the shelves were wallpapered.  Wallpaper is evil.  I peeled a bunch of it off when we first moved in, but I never finished removing it all, so it looked pretty sad on those shelves.  It took me a few hours, some hot water, vinegar and a putty knife along with my electric sander to clear the rest.  Why, whyeeeee did anyone ever think wallpapering shelves is a good idea?

What a mess.

After I removed the wallpaper and sanded down the shelves to prep for painting, I removed the shelves, which was also a process all unto its own for they were made piece-meal to fit the closet.  Because I am operating on a very low budget, I had every intention to reuse these shelves rather than build new ones.  They just needed a little love is all.

Here are the shelves in our basement workroom after being primed for paint:

 See?  They are just a little janky.  But don't judge.

Next up, the linoleum tile on the floor of the closet really needed to be replaced:

 Ick.  Just blech.

Even more gross?  Pulling it up!

There was a disgusting black tar-type adhesive underneath.  In hindsight, I should have just scoured the floor really well, and laid the new self-adhesive vinyl tile over it.  But whatever, right?  It's a linen closet.  It's not like this floor will be walked on everyday.  I bought self-adhesive vinyl tile from Home Depot for 99 cents each.  I bought 6, in case I made any mistakes, and finished with scraps of tile and one whole square left.

$6 is all I have spent so far on this project, by the by.  I'm using all materials I already had on hand, which is pretty rad.

I painted the closet with a coat of semi-gloss in the same color I used in the bathroom across the hall.  There was plenty left over for this project:

Then, I stenciled.  I bought a lovely stencil from this shop on Etsy.  It cost me $12.25 with shipping.  Total spent so far, $18.25.  Not bad!

In progress:

 And finished:

 I retiled the floor:

 I wasn't too particular with finishing the paint job well by the floor, because this area will have a shelf over it and the likelihood that it will ever be noticed is so small, I figured, why worry about it? It's okay to cut corners sometimes.  It's a CLOSET.

I wasn't wild about the faux marble, but it doesn't look bad, and I wanted something that would compliment the paint and stencil well.  This was the closest fit.

I put the shelves back in, and voila!

And reorganized:

Total cost: $18.25.  And now I have a nice, new, modern linen closet.  Hurrah!