I know I haven’t been able to religiously post updates about my home organization challenge. Weeks passed without any new posts just because I was simply lazy. No alibis this time.
Actually, I was never on break when it comes to organizing. It’s just that I can’t totally finish one area and so I could not post any reveal photos. But right now, I can say that I’m 80% done. Almost all our stuff are in their respective places now. 
So here’s what took most of my time when it comes to organization — our storage room. This used to be our maid’s room but since I was never comfortable having stay-in help, I decided to turn this space into an organized storage room. It’s right in the middle of our house too and I’ve always hated how the people who stayed here just couldn’t keep it clean. And what annoys me most is that I have no control over it because it was their room.
When our househelp left last April, I simply dumped all our unwanted stuff here. I don’t have a “before” picture but you can easily imagine how this room looked like before it was emptied. You could hardly see the floor anymore from all the things littered in here. There was a single bed underneath the stairs with shelves, baskets and boxes on top of it; under the bed were more boxes and huge plastic bags.
I am quite proud to say that I tackled this room myself except for the hauling out of the stuff and wooden wall installation. I gave the walls a fresh coat of semi-gloss paint (left-over from our kitchen paint job). Take note that this room had never been touched ever since we moved here more than three years ago so the white paint was all yellowy and icky with stains that I don’t want to know and few vandalisms care of our previous househelps!
I wanted something bright and happy for that wall and since I still have left over yellow paint from the dining room paint job, I gave that wall a coat. Oh, it was also my first time to use wall putty to smoothen the huge cracks on the wall. I don’t know if there was an air-conditioner or a window installed here before but those cracks were just plain ugly.
I thought about three coats would do but when I checked it out the day after, the wall paint bubbled so I had to scrape the whole thing off. I shouldn’t have wondered why it happened because this wall is a continuation of our living room wall which I covered partially then later on installed mirrors to cover the problem area.
So instead of wasting time and money applying more wall putty, which won’t even guarantee that the wall paint would stay smooth and stain-free, I opted to have it covered with 1/2″ plywood. (The original wall had rust stains that showed no matter how many coats of paint we applied. The only solution is to waterproof it from the outside which is not feasible since it’s the neighbor’s wall already. Yes, that’s how living in the Philippines is…) We used the whole 4′x8′ board here using metal furrings as frame instead of 2″x2″ wood just because my husband still has a lot lying around the garage.
I used pre-mixed wall putty to cover the rivets, applied one coat of primer (flat white latex since I can’t use enamel because, well, I’m pregnant!) and then sanded it smooth using 180 grit sandpaper. I know it’s not how professionals finish a wall but I’m impatient and was having constant allergy attacks due to dust and paint, not to mention this is just a storage room, so I didn’t bother making it perfect. But I’m really feeling proud of myself at this point.
So here is the progress shot! I used the same seafoam green I used in the living room but added a little white to make it a bit lighter. I still have to do a bit of styling here but it’ll do for now.
Three items had to go through a mini-make over too. The cheap book case on the left was buy1-take1 from Iloilo (for about P600 or 700, I think) and the one on the right, a shoe rack, was our first DIY project. It is made from scrap baseboards. The door was plyboard which I covered with sinamay and wood strips.
I roughly painted the cheap laminated shelves after sanding it a bit then distressed the front. For the shoe rack, I just painted it directly without any sanding or whatsoever and added the yellow “mosaic” look on the door using masking tape. Like I’ve said, I’m lazy and I just need to change the colors of these shelves. Here is the chalkboard frame I did that was once in the kitchen. I just changed the frame color to yellow to make it pop a bit. More work needs to be done here but at least this room no longer is your typical storage room. I’m planning to stash my DIY loots here.