A long time ago (I mean seriously long time) I mentioned here, how much I wanted to redo our spare bedroom and make better use of the space. I dreamed of having a lovely vanity to get ready at in the morning, complete with a fully functional and organized space for all my makeup, products, and jewelery. Well, I am happy to say we finally got around to doing it, and now I can’t believe we waited so long to get it done.
Before, we used this space for extra closets (read: where I keep all my stuff because our marriage wouldn’t last if we shared one closet), an office (for when my husband was in school), a spare bedroom (we had a futon we could use for guests) and just a general room for dumping things. When my husband finished school last September, we had talked seriously about turning the space into a more functional day to day room, but just never carved out the time to do it or really took the time to figure out what the space needed.
In the end, like all home reno projects big or small, it took much more time, a bit more money and definitely more patience than we had predicted, but the end result is well worth it. We literally feel like we have so much more space now, because we are using the room in a much more effective way. It is now a bigger closet (read: we added ANOTHER wardrobe but this one is actually shared for coats since we don’t have a coat closet), a nicely laid out office for when either of us need to work from home, a gym (we got a spin bike and needed a good place to put it) and a dressing room.
I was obviously most excited about the dressing room/vanity part, and had so much fun tracking down all the little pieces I wanted to make the space perfect. From scouring Pinterest to figure out what would work as an additional storage piece (the space we had was very limited), to finding the perfect lamp, chevron bench with built in storage, lucite containers, and finally building the necklace racks I have been meaning to do for the past two years, it was a really fun project.
Here are the items we used to create the new space (please excuse any reflection of the spin bike, desk, etc. in the background, like I said, it is a functional space). Hopefully, it will help you if you are thinking of doing a similar project, because in the end, we managed to find really affordable pieces to make the space special. Sadly, after all this time I didn’t have a great before picture to share, so you will just have to use your imagination, but I promise it is way better than before!
Key Pieces:
Target Lamp here, Lucite tray here, Lucite duo container here – I love the clean feel of the lucite pieces and it is still easy to see everything but feels much more organized
Organized nail polishes and jewelery make finding things so much easier
Necklace racks made from knobs from Anthropologie and recycled wood that we spray painted white (literally total cost of under $20)
For the pieces I reach for most, I decided to keep them front and centre but this glass tray still makes it feel organized
Simple dividers from Target now keep all my makeup organized and easy to find
This shelf above the vanity used to be a jumbled mess of things, now it is clean and sleek looking with some special items that are close to my heart
I literally look forward to getting ready in the mornings now
The fully finished space….and my new favourite area of the house
Check out my pinterest board here for more vanity inspiration and this post I did a long time ago on makeup organization if you are thinking about trying something like this at home as well.
Lilies, Lattes & Lace 