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We moved into our small ranch house nearly three years ago and one of the biggest challenges we had with this house was closet space. We went from a house with nice, spacious closets to a 1982 ranch house that clearly didn’t have storage space as a priority when it was built. This didn’t deter us though; I love our new to us house and all the character that it offers, but it did mean that we knew that in the very near future we’d have to tackle the issue. So these past few months, slowly but surely, we’ve found time to completely gut our old small closet and revamp it with the help of Lowe’s. Lowe’s had EVERYTHING we needed to makeover our space and I’m going to be sharing the whole Small Closet Makeover process with you guys!

*Warning, this is NOT the most with the pretty inspirational home decor photos* but those are in Part Two (click the link at the bottom of this post).

This is the post with “don’t judge me” and “bloggers are just like you” photos. 🙂

Small Closet Makeover BEFORE

I hate showing you guys the before of this because, well, it’s awful. But here it is in all it’s glory. The BEFORE. Disorganized, cluttered, no organization other than the fact that my side was the left and his was the right. And we made horrible use of the space.

I can’t wait to show you the AFTER!!

Small Closet Organization Ideas

So let’s start first with what you need to do and keep in mind if you’re planning a small closet makeover.

To get yourself more prepared and have a better idea of what you want, start by tackling the WORST chore of them all…cleaning and organizing your closet! Do not start a closet renovation until you’ve cleaned, decluttered and organized! I repeat, do not.

The best way to organize the clothes in your closet is to start with purging what you don’t wear. I finally went through and took a HARD look at what I owned and if I hadn’t worn it within the past year, I pitched it. I was holding onto clothes pre-children that I’d hoped for over eight years I could fit into again, but never have…so I started by purging! My room looked like this for a few days while we cleaned and organized….don’t judge me 😉

Next up, take a good hard look at your shoes. Go through and try things on and pitch or donate the items you don’t use or haven’t worn in a while. Then of course, your next step is to actually get them out of your house! Do it now! Don’t just put them somewhere else to let them pile up, get to it! Take them straight away to the donation center of choice or to the trash can if needed.

Once you’ve seriously emptied and purged, then get your makeshift closet organized until your project is done. Our “closet” became my four year old daughter’s bed for the next week.

Ok….so now you have your existing closet de-cluttered and you’re ready to get started on your demo!

Maybe you’re even searching for diy closet organization ideas on a budget and looking for awesome inspiration. I looked hard all over the internets and found that closet makeover companies were way too expensive, but that there was plenty of information online about how to redo your closet on a budget! Specifically, Lowe’s had GREAT closet organization products to make that super easy to do. So we headed up to our local Lowe’s and started looking over what they had to offer and I found the perfect DIY Closet Organizer to install in our small master bedroom closet!

So then the fun really started (*not*) and we had to completely deconstruct our closet. We took EVERYTHING out of the closet, took down the existing shelves and clothes hangers, and took off the old mirrored doors that really dated the space. You’ll also notice we pulled the old trim off so we could replace the trim when we replaced the doors.

Let me tell you…living without a closet and stacks of clothes for a week stinks, so really plan your time well and try to get your job done as quickly as possible!

Once deconstructed, we started with a fresh coat of paint in the closet. We painted it the same color as the bedroom. Then next, we painted the ceiling white so that we had a fresh coat of paint on the whole space. Repainting the ceiling may seem overkill, but in older houses especially, you’ll notice a HUGE difference with a painted ceiling and will likely quickly realize how much it was needed (and helps keep “old house smells” at bay).

Next up was the fun process of heading over to Lowe’s to go shopping! We picked up our closet organization system. When you consider the THOUSAND of dollars that you can spend with closet makeover companies, the price for our closet system was under $400 and came with everything we needed. So that was awesome!!

Once the paint dried on the freshly painted closet, we got to work installing the closet kit that we got from Lowe’s. It was the perfect small closet organizer for our space because it provided top and bottom level storage and we made good use of all the space finally in the closet.

The Allen and Roth unit we installed was very easy to install and we did have to do some tweaking to make it fit our space, but I’ll show you more about that soon.

So over the last few months we’ve slowly but surely worked to finish that space up…in the midst of the master bathroom remodel, as well, so it’s been slower than we’d like. But…

Tomorrow I’ll show you:

My closet organizer ideas along with small closet organization ideas
How to organize clothes in a small closet
The new closet doors and hardware that we installed along with new trim around the closet
And of course…the closet makeover before and after (the real reason you came)