We love our team at Bob Ward but we really are at our wits end now and we're sick of chlorinating the lines and the well when that clearly is not working (it's happened 3 times now). So we insisted that it's time to do a UV filter. Not only will this solve the issue now, but it also gives us peace of mind should we ever get bacteria in the well again. Clark agreed that it was time to try that, but apparently it is a process. Clark immediately reached out to Barlow to get things going on that side. But Steve needed to talk to the Health Department to find out what was needed to be done there.
Steve had to leave work for a few hours today to go to the Health Department and sign a form while a representative at the Health Department witnessed it. Then he had to take the form to the courthouse to register it with land records and then return all the paperwork to the Health Department. At that point, we were allowed to have the filter installed. Somehow Clark, Victor, and Barlow were able to make it all happen today. The good news is we do have the filter installed. The bad news is, there is something (a part of some sort) that is broken that needs to be fixed and will be done tomorrow. Additionally they do need to run chlorine from the filter into the house so that any pipes/lines are flushed from bacteria inside the house. This also means they need to flush the chlorine out of the pipes tomorrow and will likely take a water sample Thursday and hopefully we get results on Friday.
I'm being told that the UV filter will definitely take care of this issue, so I'd like to think we're in the home stretch now, but I'm just not sure and I'm really sick of getting excited just to be let down again. So I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode right now. The best birthday present ever would be that we are in the house by Monday (my birthday), but I'm not holding my breath on that one either.
As far as the house goes, we're down to one and a half rooms left of boxes to unpack. There's still a few projects to do like putting shelves up in the garage so we can organize that stuff and eventually park our cars in the garage. Steve's probably going to start working on that this weekend whether we are allowed to live there or not. We finished all of our planned painting last week and neither one of us really wants to hold a paint brush or roller for a little while, so I'm not sure when we'll paint other rooms in the house. I was trying to wait until there was paint on the walls in the closet before I blogged about it, but I'm too excited to wait since it happens to be one of my favorite rooms in the house right now. :-)
When we first saw the master closet in the model home, I told Steve that if we were to buy that house, there is no way the white wire shelves in that closet would work. A closet that size needs an organization system and thankfully he agreed with me. When we decided on that house, I started researching closet organization systems. Target and Home Depot have a few options, but they are very minimal options with no flexibility. I kept reading a lot about the Pax system at Ikea which is what we ended up going with. There are a lot of other more expensive solutions out there too, like the companies that are specifically selling closet solutions. Ikea worked just fine for us. The Pax system is really just the "shell." It looks like an empty bookshelf but then you fill it with things in the Komplement line like drawers, shelves, etc. We did a lot of planning for this including drawings, measuring, and taking inventory of what we needed to put in the closet. I can't stress enough that there is no such thing as too much planning for this because I'll share a mistake we made that we were able to overcome.
Anyway, we decided on Steve having two of the Pax shells and I was going to have four. We both liked the look of the glass drawers with a glass shelf on top of it, so we planned on that. Steve is using his for ties and belts and I'm using mine for scarves and Fitbit bands because I have a small obsession with Fitbit bands. I wanted a few drawers to hold some t-shirts and shorts/capris. We both added the pants hanger which is really cool because it's like a drawer. Then of course we had hanging rods for each shell. Steve also wanted two shelves for shoes. These are pretty cool because they are two shelves in one, sort of doubling your shoe capacity. Before we built our system, we were planning on the entire back wall of our closet being devoted to my shrine of shoes and purses without the Pax shell, so I originally didn't need the shoe shelves. Now comes the mistake...
Pax comes in a variety of sizes. There is a 22" deep option or a 13" deep option (I think those are the right measurements). Plus there is a 78" tall option or an even taller option that I can't remember the exact measurement. We have 8 foot ceilings on the second floor, so we were considering the taller option, but since I wanted little lights over each shell, we couldn't do the taller option. Not a huge deal at all, and I actually like it a lot better this way. Where we made the mistake though is we got the 22" deep option for all six of our shells. We originally planned on all four of my shells being on the opposite wall of Steve's two, which meant the aisle between the two sides was only going to be as wide as the doorway which didn't look very wide once we were in the closet with the first one assembled. Each shell weighs 90 pounds in the box. Steve and I really didn't feel like returning 5 90-pound shelves to a store that's a half hour away only to come back with the 13" deep version that was roughly the same weight with no help to carry this stuff in (the moving crew originally helped carry all these in last weekend). We were determined to find a way to make this work. The other reason we talked ourselves out of the 13" deep option was because the hangers would stick out and we liked the thought of it looking a little more tidy by having that all contained within the shell.
We scrapped the idea of the back wall being entirely shoes and purses and we ended up putting one of my shells on the back wall. We also scrapped one of my four shells altogether, so now I only have three. When we were drawing up where everything would go, I was actually struggling to fill the last shell, so I knew I could make three work anyway. We still put my other two shells across from Steve's but that also created a dead space between the back wall and the first shell. We fixed that by buying a tension rod from Target and that is now used to hang dresses. Because we decided to return one of my shells, this created a good bit of open space at the front of the closet, making it feel not as closed in and really the aisle isn't as bad as we originally thought anyway. We used some of the space next to Steve's area of the closet to install shelves for my purses. We also ended up buying more of the shoe shelves for me for the shell that's on the back wall. The purse shelves were from Ikea as well, called Ekby Bjarnum.
A couple very easy things you can do to make your closet feel cleaner and more organized is to spend money on hangers. I know it seems ridiculous, but this was a tip I picked up when we were trying to sell our house. Not to mention I was sick of all my sweaters getting those stupid puckers on the shoulders from cheap hangers. When all your hangers match, it's a much cleaner look. I splurged and wanted velvet hangers so those puckers wouldn't happen. The other easy thing you can do to make a closet feel more organized is to put everything in color order. Again, that was a tip I picked up when trying to sell our townhouse and now it's a habit I can't break.
Now let's talk accessories! I know Steve has to share the closet with me, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from blinging out the closet in a major way! First, I already knew I wanted lights on top of each shelf and again those were from Ikea as well (Lindshult). Then I wanted to switch out the generic overhead closet lights with over-the-top chandeliers. Steve thought I was insane and he definitely didn't appreciate having to install them, but he did tell me after they were installed that he really liked the look! Next was drawer pulls. I had three drawers in my closet that I didn't want to have as glass drawers, so they have a boring solid white front. I found the most perfect, sparkly drawer pulls at Home Depot months ago by Richlieu Hardware. The chandeliers are Fifth Main brand from Home Depot as well - both of those purchases were before the appliance debacle with Home Depot.
Enjoy the pictures! It will be painted someday, I'm just not sure when and I'm not sure what color.
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| View in the closet from the door (purses are not shown but are on shelves to the left) |
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| Purse shelves |
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| Steve's side of the closet. I pulled out the pants hanger so you could see how that works. |
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| My side! :-) |
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| Chandeliers and lights on top |
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| Rhinestone drawer pulls |
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| Tension rod in the dead space in the back of the closet. |
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| Steve and I each have a valet hook so we can pick out our clothes the night before. |
