¡Ven a mi casa amiguita y te enseño mi ropero!

Unbelievable, but true. Our closet is completed. Now, I know this doesn't sound like reason to celebrate, but this damn closet caused us so much grief over the last few months that it was leading us down the "irreconcilable differences" road.

First we painted. Fine. Time consuming, but standard. Then we had to remove the old closet setup - which involved metal pipes, 2x4s nailed to the walls, and 100 degree heat. The trick is, that these 2x4s that were nailed to the walls were nailed in such a way, that each nail was on a different angle (how this was achieved, I know not) and when I managed to pry it from the wall it brought large chunks of said wall with it. Now, our house was built in 1870, so the plaster is just waiting for you to give it a reason to crumble. So we patched, replastered, allowed the plaster to dry and repainted. Ok, so at this point we are basically at what should be square one.

We purchase a closet system. I didn't think much about it, I just knew that I wanted bi-level hanging bars so I chose the cheapest system with that feature. We get it home and begin reading the directions only to realize that installation requires your closet to have side walls - fair enough - but our closet doesn't. Well, it does, but our room is in what would be the attic so we have drastically sloped ceilings which make the side walls about 4 feet tall and not compatible with this system. So - we get a replacement closet system that allows you to mount it from the back wall. The end is in sight.

So we get to work mounting the system's main bracket. We are careful to use anchors where there aren't studs, we use our brand new level to ensure our hangers don't slide to one side, and we measure to achieve optimal spacing. Now that the main bracket is up and sturdy we proceed to mount the supporting vertical brackets - and we hit brick. Now, it is possibly to drill and mount in brick in most cases with masonry bits and anchors - but as I've mentioned, our house is exceptionally old and the brick just crumbled and left a gaping hole. This is where I had the nervous breakdown. Thankfully the Burgan clan swooped in and worked their magic. I don't what they did or how they did it (and I don't want to) but all the brackets seem sturdy.

Finally we were able to put up the rods and shelves and hang our clothes and accessories. I can't tell you how happy and relieved I am - perhaps it's silly, but this closet was nearly the death of me. It's kind of a gateway project - now that we've cleared all our clothes and shoes out of the living room we can begin to organize other closets which will hopefully set off a sequence of organizing projects. We'll see.