Week 3 & Week 4 Fall One Room Challenge Update!

Welcome to our Week 3 & Week 4 Fall One Room Challenge Space update!

In this post, we will share our progress of week 3 & week 4 of the One Room Challenge. Here we will discuss closet systems; the good and the bad, lighting choices, our challenges and solutions, and our to-do list for the rest of the challenge.

Time is flying by! As we rolled into week 3, receiving most of our materials halfway, we decided to get to work and keep going onto week 4 to be able to offer you a more substantial progress update. With that said let’s move onward to see where we are at on this Fall One Room Challenge.

To catch up and see what our design plan is and more details behind this project follow these links to previous weeks.

Week 1 – Week 2

Here is a refresher on the direction that we are following on this master closet makeover.

Week 3

Lighting

During our third week, we received our track lighting. Track lighting? You say, why not a beautiful chandelier or statement fixture? We promise you it’s not your old 70s look track light. Nowadays they have beautiful and various models available for these types of lights.

But why? So, remember way back when we knocked that wall in the closet that adjoined to the bathroom where the old 1 sink vanity was? (here’s a picture).

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Well, in the new, bigger space the light fixture stayed in its old “centered” place, meaning that now it was offset to one side. We decided not to pay attention to it at the moment as our priority was the bathroom and we still hadn’t decided what our final plans were for the closet. Would I kick out Marido and keep that closet to myself? Would we just turn it into a seating area before our now luxurious bathroom? Or would we turn it into a “sweat” room gearing towards the color red wink* wink*? Either way, we decided we would worry about it later.

Fast forward to now. Honestly, we’re not going to make another hole on the ceiling just to relocate that light fixture after many hours and sweat went into patching and fixing the huge gap that wall removal left. So we looked for solutions. We needed a light that could be able to illuminate simultaneously different spaces in the closet, and that was linear enough that was not going to interfere with any closet solution that we ended up choosing. So this modern and functional lighting option was the answer.

If you follow us on Instagram (and if you don’t go right now @made.in.casita) you probably saw the light fixture and how we installed it while one of the little ones explained the process. If not go ahead and check it out, it’s saved under one of our highlights named Fall ORC ’21. For now here are some pictures.

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After lighting was taken care of, it was time to move on to the next thing. Wait for more materials to come >_>.

Week 4

Just as week 4 was about to start, we received most of our closet system, yay! But as you know, we are working on this an hour here and there a week, because well LIFE.

We started working on them as quickly as we possibly could. Here is our experience.

Now, we’ve bought closet systems before and had a great experience with them. The kids and guest bedroom have these and they were a breeze to install. Now for our closet, we were focused on configuration and budget since we just had expenses from our master bath remodel (even though we completely DIY-ed it). So we found one that seemed that might work for the space and offered a variety in storage and customization for a decent price and ended up ordering 2 of them with different configurations.

The Closet System

First, we received all the packages in different boxes at the same time with no way of identifying which box belonged to what closet system. So we had to open all of them to figure out what went with what.

So to better understand what we wanted, here was the idea. One closet system would go on the east wall (the smallest) and it would consist of double hanging rods and one tower of shelves with 1 drawer included. The second one would go on the south wall (the largest) and was supposed to be 1 long hanging rod (for dresses), double hanging space, shoe racks, and 1 tower with shelves and 1 drawer included. I also purchased separately 1 drawer for my jewelry, so that my emotionally valuable pieces have a well-deserved home.

It took us a little back and forth and maybe 1 or 2 wine glasses while Alexa played some relaxing tunes to figure out what we had and how we wanted to hang it.

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As you can see we ended up with one section with double hanging rods and a tower with hanging space and shelving to the bottom. The second section is made up of one long hanging rod, 1 tower with shelving from top to bottom with drawers, and a section with double hanging rods.

It all looks great and dandy, What’s next? Well since we have time and materials left and the skills why not add more? We decided with the scrap materials to bring the towers all the way down and create more shelving. This will help in my shoe hoarding vice, buahahaha!

Why not a separate space just for shoes? Well, remember our One Room Challenge last season, when we cleaned our closet and took everything out to be able to purge and demo? Well, I made it my mission this time around to try and minimize my stuff so shoes were part of it. Don’t worry I’m still keeping those sexy pumps that I can no longer wear (because our outings consist of playgrounds and nature walks) but still makes me feel sexy! Hey, who knows maybe ill wear them while I do chores around the house to justify having them. Well either way it’s the thought that counts.

Moving away from sexy pumps and back to the closet, turns out the shelving that we already have installed is more than enough for my shoes (well, just enough). So we decided not to overcrowd the space without need, goodbye makeup vanity that I was trying to sneak in the design.

What about the rest of the space? We are still pondering on either a hanging space for scarves with hooks or a hamper built-in or maybe both.

You may have noticed if you were paying attention that there are drawers missing from the towers, only the one I purchased separately was installed. It’s because they didn’t arrive with the systems instead they arrived later on. And guess what? They don’t match! So to another item on our to-do list added is to make matching drawer fronts. Yay >_>

I know I know if we have the skills to build a closet system from scratch, why go through all these mods in the first place? Geez, you guys are full of questions today! In reality yes we could have, would it be easier? Maybe, would it have been more expensive? Not sure, would it have taken longer? Definitely yes.

Honestly, we are still recuperating from all the work that went into the master bath and as we have shared with you all through our social media we are starting a new adventure here at Made In Casita as we transition into bringing our skills, experience, and knowledge to your own casitas, plus still keeping up with all our kids and family life and activities. We just wanted something premade that we could still put our personal touch on but would still allow us to do it quickly. Like fast little projects vs big long ones (like our husbands…patience).

And that’s it for these past 2 weeks. As you can see we haven’t just been drinking coffee and wine while enjoying life, I mean we have but we also have been working our asses off as well. We will leave you with some tips on installing premade closet systems and our list of things left to do. For more on this and our other ongoing projects like Erica’s brothers Casita go check out our highlights on Instagram @made.in.casita and if you don’t know what we are talking about, seriously what are you waiting for, go now and follow us already 😛

Tips on installing Closet Systems

• Come up with a plan on what configuration you want before installing the system. That way you avoid making extra holes on the system while moving stuff around.
• Make sure you hang the top shelf a minimum of 82 inches from the floor. With this you have enough space to put double hanging rods and be able to use that top shelf and the bottom shelf under the top hanging rod.
• Attatch the rods a few inches back and not where the instructions say. This will allow the hangers to sit a little bit more inside and wont be sticking out like as much. But make sure you dont set them straight dab in the middle because although the hanger will go further back they will end up in an angle when you hang clothes on them as the space wont be enough on the back for garments with sleeves and such.

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• If you have holes from the system exposed on the outside panel like us, consider using a vynil wrap to cover that panel and give it a finished look.
• Try to use screws on shelving when possible to give it extra sturdiness. Leave some without if you think your needa might change and eventually would like to move around the shelving.
• Like we mentioned before, use your own shoes to measure the space you need for your shelves. This applies to any object you are planing to use the space for. Again, make sure you use the actual item for scale.
• Caulk the joints with white or clear silicone to give more firmness and a more clean and finished look.
• Measure yourself to confirm at what height you want to place the drawer so that you can open it comfortably.

To-Do List

• Build drawer front and install
• Build lower shelving
• Install new drawer pulls
• Finish purchasing accesories (hangers, drawer inserts, etc)
• Decide what to do with the extra wall space

And now that’s officially it. We hope you enjoyed the read and found helpful all the info provided or at least inspiring. Let us know what are your tips on creating your dream bathroom? What would you do with that extra wall space? Don’t forget to go and check out how the rest of the guest participants and featured designers are doing this week’s One Room Challenge!