"ode to alicia", or "blame it on alicia", or "completely inspired by alicia"

My new art room closet...

I'm in love with it, and can't wait to unpack more supplies and load those shelves!  When we moved in, the closet had gold framed mirror doors and an awkward closet system. We removed the doors and moved the system to my daughter's closet where it's working perfectly. {More on that another day.}

At the stage above, I was dreaming a lot about what to do...I considered ebay hunting for enough flocked wallpaper to properly wallpaper the entire thing (which I still think would have been great). Or covering the entire closet with the pages of an old French book, but I decided to go for funky and different and used Alicia's closet door as my inspiration. Of course, her closet door looks different; it has such a clean outline, a fresh sweetness, and is not a crazy large space, but I'm sure you can see the resemblance. (And even some of the same paper since we traded long ago.)

So I began...cutting random pieces of paper, and rolling on wallpaper paste- which I have to say is my new favorite glue. Man, that stuff really works, dries fast and flat too. I was even using it on a metal cabinet the other day. It worked perfectly.

The names I gave the photos below when exporting them says it all:
"closet-going up"..."closet-slow going"..."closet-will it never end"...and "closet-finally finished".

It was a long, long, tedious process. I did it over many different nights, sometimes many days (weeks?) in between. One great thing I discovered is that I didn't have to clean the roller each time...just used it to roll glue on the back of the paper and when I came to a stopping point left it sitting uncovered. When I came back to it,  I just wiped the dried glue out of the rolling pan, poured in more glue, and used the same roller. Maybe three times I had to pick off a little dried glue clump, but it was so worth it to not clean the roller or pan- two of my least favorite activities.

You can see that I also used some book pages and then even some photos too. I felt very Anthropologie-ish when I started doing that one. I did chuckle to myself when imagining what the person that buys this home after us will think. It's gonna take a special buyer to "get" this one. But that's not something I'm worrying about with this house. At our last home I thought about it from day one until the very end. Had I known we were going to be there 17 years, I would have proceeded differently. We thought we'd be there less than 5! That's why this time, I'm doing what we want from the very start. (And, by the way, the special touches or personality we did add are what ended up selling the house, so they said. Well, that and the fact that we put a very fair price on it to sell quickly in a bad market.)

Once the walls were covered, I had to figure out what to use for the shelves and support. My husband wanted to build nicely framed shelves like he did in my last art room, (that you can see a tiny bit of here) but I wanted something very light so that you would see as much of the paper as possible. So we decided on brackets and shelves. After going to Home Depot and Lowe's, we settled on a pretty typical wood bracket that had some nice features like pre-drilled holes and plugs for same. I decided to cover the sides of the brackets with plain ledger paper from an old ledger, and painted the front edge a creamy white. I covered the shelves with pages from an old French book. I used the same roller and wallpaper paste as I did on the walls which made it relatively easy to get the 30 (!!!) brackets and 8 different pieces of wood that needed cutting up done.

The hardest part of the whole project came next: patiently and impatiently waiting for my husband to build and install the shelves. Our schedule has been way too full lately for any consistent project. But today, he finished!

Here's a close up of a bracket and shelf:

And here's a shot of  the closet wall. The photo is a photocopy of my Dad when he was a little boy (what a cutie!):

And now for my favorite part: loading the shelves! I've got a lot of organizing and purging to do, but I wanted to get something up there to show you a photo. (The top photo does not include the last shelf which was added on top today.)

{I'm sorry I don't have any wallpaper for sale at this time. Feel free to direct people to other sources in the comments section.}

Thanks Alicia, you know I love you and your endless creative inspiration!

Comments

[carissa]

okay... wow! that is FABULOUS! i LOVE it! i mean it! wow!

thank you so much for sharing! i am InsPiRed with a big "I"!

you have got to love the outcome! way to go!

(have had you saved as a favorite... really enjoy your blog)

[Tami]

This is such a great closet treatment. Absolutely beautiful! Great way to use up all those fabulous wallpaper bits too. :-)

[thegardenofpinkshadows]

WoW! Fantastic Pam! I am (coincidentally?!) doing an overhaul on my studio and closet and while I'm not going to wallpaper the whole thing I may need to "borrow" your borrowed idea!

It looks great! Congratulations on finishing such a big project!

:-)

Melissa

[Sarah]

That's SPECTACULAR!

[Alison Gibbs]

That looks fabulous.
Alison

[Rosa]

The most beautiful closet I've ever seen. I redid my hall closets this summer and painted them a pretty blue, but nothing like this. What beauty! LOVE it!!!

[joyce]

It looks fabulous! I covered some cheap box store shelves with book pages and I love how they came out. I'll try to take a pic tomorrow and post it...I've never shown them on my blog.

[Dede Warren]

This looks FaBuLouS Pam! I think we all loved Alicia's door, but I wouldn't have thought of taking this spin on it. Smarty pants!

[Mystele]

Awesome! I have a feeling that this idea will find it's way into my art room!

[Meleen]

love, love, love the closet!! it deserves a new name, it's not a closet anymore!! did you dream about it every night while you were working on it? ~~~ i would have been dreaming about it every night!!!

meleen

[Tina (in Seattle)]

Wow! I loved the look when Alicia did it and your version is amazing.

[Heidi]

I have some vintage wallpaper but haven't listed it in my etsy shop yet. feel free to contact me over there at www.spiritualknitter.etsy.com. I've got 6 or 7 different kinds so you could get a good start on this look!

love the closet!

[Lilli]

Felicitations!!! So Beautiful, what a labor of love. Thanks for sharing your tips (re: paste et al)

Is the wallpaper glued to the actual wall? I would imagine that future tenants (if any) opening the closet for the first time, would be puzzled about which decade your handiwork took place in, because of the vintage papers. I think your creation is so magical and whimsical....you might think of writing a little note on the wall to introduce yourself or maybe share your feelings about the house :)

[Lisa]

What a fantastic project. This is really beautiful. I actually thought this was a dollhouse room when I first click your site.

Yes, it does have that Alicia Paulson flavor. I love the step by step too. It fun to see how much went into pulling it all together.

[luanne]

this is just the cutest, pam. you have such a great eye, and such wonderful fresh ideas! i look forward to seeing more of the special touches you add to your new house.

[Sara]

you made such a wonderful art object out of the closet!

[Catherine M. Scanlon]

What a lovely closet! You did an awesome job!!

[Artsy]

Even your art closet is a work of art. Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

[jerusalem]

that is so beautiful! I have been wanting to do that to my hallway and now I am even more inspired!

[Judy in Carefree]

Outstanding!

[vintage flair]

WOW....I had to keep looking at the photos over and over again...what a great craft closet you have. When it is finished it needs to be published in a magazine. Love it!
Lori

[Amy]

FABULOUS!

[Maria Kelly]

WOW!!! I think that may be the most beautiful closet i've ever seen! Nice work!
Maria

[Janet M.]

Stunning and so beautiful too, (actually cannot find the words to really describe how exciting this closet is!!) Thanks so much for sharing these pictures...gotta run, off to find more vinage wallpaper!

[kerry lynn]

seriously!
seriously!!?!
this is delicious!!!
you amaze me and inspire me SO much!
xoxo