Category: Home Decor

Closet Update: An Ikea Komplement Add-On

Back when I finished my walk-in closet in 2022, I truly thought I was done and had the closet of my dreams. You can read all about it, including how much it cost, here. Well, after living with it for about 4 years AND after moving to a mostly remote job… I started to realize it could use a little tweaking.

Here is the section that I was looking at for some edits:

I had it organized with summer dresses on the far left, skirts in the middle (summer at the top, winter at the bottom), and then winter and formal dresses on the right. Also, that basket at the bottom of the left cubby is my “stuff that needs to be donated to the thrift store” pile.

Over the years, my work wardrobe has become much more athleisure heavy. I was using a dresser in my bedroom to store my t-shirts, bottoms and sweatshirts. However, between the gigantic oversized drawers that made it hard to organize and the fact that it’s over 20 years old and one drawer keeps falling apart… I was looking for a better alternative.

I decided to combine my dresses into one area and utilize the now empty space in a different way.

I purchased the following from Ikea to add to my closet for the update:

Building the drawers was pretty straight forward, however they are quite fussy and you need to have everything EXACTLY lined up or they won’t fit onto the contraption for the final step. There was a lot of cursing and a smashed finger which resulted in quite an impressive blood blister, but I got it done.

Tips for if you do it on your own: have an electric screwdriver handy, as well as a flathead and a hammer. Also, don’t be like me and put each drawer together while sitting on the ground and contorting yourself like a gremlin. It would be much smarter to build them on top of a soft bed/comforter so that you can stand while doing it.

Here is the finished project:

I left the hanging bar at the top for my nicer camera-appropriate athleisure toppers. Then, I utilized the four drawers to better meet my needs.

  • Drawer 1: t-shirts
  • Drawer 2: long sleeve t-shirts
  • Drawer 3: hoodies/sweatshirts
  • Drawer 4: joggers/sweatpants

I love the new set up and it seems to work much better for my current life and needs.

And yes, I do feel like my dress and skirts sections are packed a little too tight for my comfort. So, I am working on yet another purge to narrow it down to just the items that I fully love.

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Creating a Floating Fairy Forest Hanging Terrarium

I shared back in February 2025 when I first went to a local shop for a Preserved Moss Art Frame Class. Well, I saw that they were offering a new Floating Fairy Forest Hanging Terrarium class, so I signed up to make one with my friend Lindsey.

Lindsey is my green thumb plant goddess friend, who has helped me keep my ever-growing assortment of indoor plants alive at my house. So obviously she’d join me for a plant class, which came with a side of shopping the store afterwards. And tacos and margaritas. Which were not part of the class, but were very much needed.

Back to the class — each member of the group received the glass hanging terrarium, an assortment of soil, charcoal, stones, mix to add for drainage, three little plants (one we got to choose), and some adorable little mushrooms, green rocks, a lamp post and a string of lights.

Then they walked us step-by-step on how to add everything into our terrariums. Everyone was super nice and I totally wanted to bring home a bunch of new friends with me, but I’m shy in groups and I feel like it would be weird to ask new people to be my friend. The class was super fun and I really liked watching how everyone chose to combine their items,

I’m so happy with how mine turned out! When I got it home, I tried it in a few different areas in my house and ultimately decided on our master bathroom.

I feel like it gets good light AND good humidity for all the healthy terrarium needs. Now cross your fingers with me that it flourishes and grows!

DIY Laundry Room Refresh

Our laundry room has been kind of horrible since we moved in 14 years ago. I know, I know. How did we get by for FOURTEEN years without me doing something about it… especially when I’ve redone the nearby bathroom like 3-4 times? I don’t know, I guess I tried to just ignore it.

Which is kind of hard when I have a straight view into the washer and dryer from my favorite spot in the den. And I let the dogs out into the backyard with that door to the left multiple times a day. And I enter from the right door every time I come in from my garage. Anywhoo, I finally decided to just go for it and within a week, our laundry room had a glow up!

Here’s the before:

So yeah, it’s kind of a ‘hard working’ room.

The ugly brown walls were leftover from the last people who owned the house (I KNOW). When we moved in, I added the curtain and pictures from my ‘home decorating stash’ and they were okay, I guess. We also added the ‘stockroom’ portion which is what we call that food shelf and it is invaluable when we do our Costco/Sam’s Club shopping for extras.

My goal for the refresh was: lighter and brighter. I wanted it to feel clean and crisp and have better organization. I also didn’t want to spend a ton of money to do it and planned on doing every single thing 100% myself.

The plan: repaint the walls to something lighter, add tile to the back wall, and mount some shelves to give a natural spot to end the tile and start the upper wall paint. Also, clean out some unneeded stuff and add better organization options.

Here’s what I purchased for the project:

Total: $265

Things I already owned: 1 gallon of Behr “Greige” paint (leftover from when I did our living room and upstairs bathroom/walk-in closet), ceiling paint, white trim paint, white silicone caulk, command hook, wall mounted laundry drying rack, and assorted stuff for shelf décor.

First up, was cleanout time. I removed everything from the laundry room, dragged the washer and dryer away from the walls, and took down everything from the walls. I scrubbed the crap out of the gross laundry room sink too, which frankly has needed to be done for a while. Then, I spackled all the holes in the walls and let them dry for about a day before sanding the bejezzus out of them to get them nice and smooth.

Next, I grabbed some ceiling paint I had sitting around and painted the tops of all the walls. The person who painted previously was messy, so there was some brown on the edges and the ceiling – so in repainting with a new color, I wanted to make sure I’d have nice, crisp edges with no ugly brown lurking around.

Then, it was time to start the tile… which is quite fun and gives some immediate gratification of what it will look like when it’s done. I used a level and tape measure to make sure that everything was going to be perfectly straight and then I started peeling and sticking that tile on from wall to wall. I absolutely loved the tiles I picked and they were relatively easy to work with. For piecing the puzzle together, I would eyeball the sizing and then take a pair of hardy scissors and cut the thick plastic tiles to the correct size, making adjustments as needed. The edges (where the tile met the wall) didn’t need to be perfect since I was planning to caulk.

It took 2 coats of paint for nice coverage of the previous color. Once I was done painting the walls, I grabbed some trim paint and re-painted all the trim so it looked nice and fresh/white/clean again. Then, I caulked each side of the tile to give it a professional look.

Then it was the easy bits of hanging/re-hanging everything – up went the shelves, laundry drying rack, vacuum charger and pictures. Oh and if you’re wondering why I had to take down the laundry rack and vacuum charger, fill the holes and then re-mount them both… they had to move over a few inches to accommodate the new shelf.

Here’s the after:

If you’d prefer to see a compilation video, you can see it here:

I’m so happy with how it turned out! It just feels so much more bright and clean, and it is a much prettier view from my spot on the den couch. Of course, I’m kicking myself for not doing this year’s ago, but I’m quite satisfied with my less than a week of work (in my spare time, I have a day-job) and less than $300!

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