The Geiszlers

We recently redid a small guest bedroom in our house. This included painting the walls with a bright faux finish, repainting a bed, building (not just assembling) a closet organizer, as well as decorating all on a tight budget. 

I can't seem to dig up a before photo but the room was basically plain white for the wall and trim and it was the original paint from when it was built new (cheap paint.)

Painting the walls

First we cleared out the entire room, removed the socket covers, the closet doors and washed down the walls and ceiling. Then the ceiling was painted white (Sherwin-Williams Everclean in Super White.) Once that was completed we painted the base coat with a Sherwin-Williams Interior Super Paint, Satin in the color Navel (SW6887.) We paid very close attention to making nice crisp lines where the wall meets the ceiling and the wall meets the trim. Then we mixed 4 parts Glaze to 1 part Interior Super Paint, Satin in the color Real Red (SW6868.) My brother applied the glaze mixture in an assortment of random splotches and squiggles. My wife and I followed right behind him with a synthetic sponge wipe/smearing the paint around trying to keep the look random but with a similiar amount on glaze/sq ft. If we were too light on the application we would simply add more. If the mix was too heavy we would spread it further while it was wet. Note: the glaze dries fast so two or more people is highly recommended. The color shown appears on my screen a little peachier than it is in real life. In natural light it looks like the walls are a swirling fire.

Building a Closet Organizer

While the room was still cleared out I decide to build a closet organizer. There are three main reasons I chose to build completely from scratch instead of buying a kit.

1. We have sliding doors, which makes both sides accessible but the center is not. All of the kits we found had the shelving in the center.
2. We wanted to match the decore of the house, which our small 1640 sq/ft 4 bedroom house on a very small lot was built using mostly white melamine boards for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Therefore we did not want to use the wire racks (plus they look cheap.)
3. The cost for kits using melamine were extravagant (with the options I did on this closet they would be around $170-250) as were the options of having a company custom design and build, or send you the unassembled organizer ($400.) My total cost was around $120.

  To do this project I measured the inside of the closet which was 8' high x 61.75" wide and 2' deep.

I used 3/4" thick white melamine (vinyl covered particle board) that was 15 and 3/4" deep and two sheets had the predrilled adjustable shelf holes Assembly had to be done in the closet. The vertical pieces were cut and brought into the closet as it could not fit through the closet entrance. Then the top shelves were placed in and connected to the verticals and on the wall it was mounted with to shelf holders since it had a large span without an end mounting vertical wall (see pictures below and notice I did not use them on the shelving side because the top piece only extended a few inches past the vertical. After that I began to add the non-moving shelves around hanging areas and finally added the moveable shelves. 

I made the shelf 7' high on the clothes hanging side. Note: I would  possibly make it shorter so getting a box on top would be easier if using a narrow board wasn't enough as the closet comes down further than on the inside to hide the closet door rail. This would lower your double hanger area which depending on the clothes might not be worth the trade off. I made the dress or long clothes item 1' wide and the double hanger was approximately 34" wide and is in the middle and left of the closet. These lengths were based off the room being a guest room and it is unlikely a large amount of clothes will be stored in this room. Additionally the room is too small to take up room for a shelving system outside the closet. There is 4" between the double hanger rods and the shelf above them so that their is plenty of room to get the hanger onto the rod without bumping the shelf. On the dress hanger area I left more room at around 12" between the rod and the top shelf in case I wanted to add a small shelf above the rod.

The shelf area is 6' high which was a good decision as I can get boxes on that shelf and over onto the 7' area I still would have used 11" deep for the top shelf if I could do it again.   The shelving area was 2' wide on the inside. Note: If I were to put drawers in I would buy the precut easy assembly ones as they are almost as cheap as building one. Additionally I might have had to make the shelving area only 2' wide on the outside (not inside) to use precut drawers. I would buy the shelves first and make sure I have my vertical walls at the correct width for the drawers. The left over inches would be used on the end so that shelves (or potentially drawers) would not hit the wall outcropping. Additionally I built a shoe storage area that is about 2' tall at the bottom of the shelf area. I screwed in the bottom horizontal slats and then used a two part glue to mount the upper horizontal pieces (which hides the screws.) The top horizontal is just an adjustable shelf placed on top. I would have only split the shoe organizer in four horizontally to make more room if I did it again which would have given 5 and 5/8th" width(if you minus out the vertical dividers) for each shoe spot.

     

Painting a Bed

The last main project was to take a honey colored mission style bed and make it work with the room colors, which all furniture is black and white. With some hints of color included in the decorations. First we took the bed and removed the varnish and stain by sanding with 60 grit paper on a random orbit sander. Note: I would try using a varnish remover next time to speed up the process. Then we did a smooth sand with 220 grit paper on the random orbiter. We primed using latex primer and then used Sherwin-Williams Black oil based all purpose enamel. Both of these products were sprayed onto the bed with a house paint sprayer (Graco 695) to give it an even finish. A long drying time would have improved our results as we flipped one side a little too early and absorbed some of the lint off the drop cloth, giving it a not completely smooth feel even after letting it dry twice the time listed for dry to touch. Luckily the sheets and skirt cover all of the less than perfect areas. See pic below you can barely see the bed poking out.

Decorating

As you can see from the pictures above and below (note wall color highly inaccurate in pictures below due to lighting) we used modern styled decorations and chose furniture all in black and white. We also used a quick assembly TV stand in black from Target ($20) that can be pulled out to watch TV or hidden at the end of the bed when not in use.

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