A little project gets big

     Although we are trying to keep our projects small and manageable that is just not always the way it turns out. Take my bathroom closet for example.  It is small and a ghastly pink with shelves that don't fit properly.  I thought it would be pretty simple to take out the shelves, put in new ones and paint it. This is the pathetic little closet once the shelves were removed.

But after taking out the shelves we realized how shotty the back wall of the closet was made which separates it from the closet in the office. (You can see the light coming through in the upper right hand corner of the closet.) So that had to go as well. And if that was going then we might as well take out all the parts of the closet in the office that suck too and finish it all at the same time. End result, a gaping hole where two closets use to be...

We also found that the bathroom closet didn't have a proper floor as the previous remodeler had just laid one of the shelves on the ground. So now you can see into the bathroom from the office when the bathroom closet door is open.

And then there is the inside of the office closet. Nothing matches up properly and there is a section where they didn't even put drywall. Instead they taped up cardboard and painted over it. So after we took all the crap out it looked like this.

But the drywall they used way back when is no longer sold. It is thicker today than the stuff we have so we can't just add a slice of drywall. We had to cut out all the drywall from that side of the closet and put in entirely knew stuff.  Needless to say we have not yet finished this project as it has gotten a lot bigger than planned.  And there is still the garden to tend and other more pressing work to be done.  But I did do one simple project that was fun and useful.

I saw on pinterest that you can make your own chalkboard paint by mixing two tablespoons of unsanded tile grout with a cup of paint. So I went to Lowe's and got a sample size of gray paint and the aforementioned grout. I could have done any color but I do have traditionalist tendencies. I chose the column in the kitchen next to the fridge as a useful place to put my chalkboard and just painted a rectangle. I used painters tape to get nice lines and did two thick coats. 

This section only used about a fourth of my cup so I also painted a board to hang next to our dartboard to keep score with and part of a wall in my studio.  And I still have some paint left so a little really does go a long way.  In total I think all the supplies cost about 4 dollars. Now, if only building a new closet was that cheap and easy.