ORC Week 2: Down and Out, or is that Out and Down?

Wow.
A week already.

For those who don't know, I am creating a dressing room from a wide hallway for my Mom during the One Room Challenge hosted by Linda of Calling It Home. We have five weeks. Linda selects twenty name designers to take on the challenge. They post their progress on Wednesdays. On Thursdays Linda flings open the door to anyone crazy enough to accept. Like me (and more than 150 others).

If you remember the before pictures (here, in Week One), Mom hadn't quite managed to clear everything out of the room--and the closet was still chocker block full.

I'm working over there when I can. This week, I was only able to get over there for a day and a half. On my first visit, I emptied the shelves and the closet.

I put everything here:

I didn't have the room to move things like shelves themselves, too far, unfortunately!

I just squeeze by.

This is the wide hallway. It's just under five feet wide. It leads to a closet, as you can see. You can also see that maintaining access to the closet makes this space frustrating to use well.

On the right in the picture above is the deep side of the old closet. It's about 24" deep. When we are done, it'll only be 13" deep. The plan is to use this space for long hanging things and shoes.

Below is a view of the hallway/room taken standing inside the closet looking out. On the other side of the stairwell is a lovely area Mom uses as a sitting room/guest room (it has a fold out couch). She recently had new windows installed in this room, so while I could load up the couch with stuff--I couldn't go right up to the windows or block access because the workman needs to return to finish the drywall and trim work for them.

On the second day, I moved the desk out by the railing and put up some plastic.

oops, sorry for the blur!

I had a terrible time with the bifold door. I finally googled "how to remove a bifold door" and found out it was too easy. Definitely one of those doh moments! Things moved quickly once it was gone.

Out of respect for Mom's lungs, I did my best to remove the drywall as intact as possible--I also didn't want a big mess to clean up. I managed to find most of the screws--so I just unscrewed it from the studs.

I removed the carpet from the closet--but left the underlay for my poor knees.

I started to work on the 2x6s (yes, 2x6s--who uses 2x6s to build a closet?) but the reciprocating saw we had just wasn't powerful enough. I'm going to rent one from Home Depot--and I bet we'll have that baby down in no time!

Progress may be slower than it ought to be as Mom isn't able to help. She's having a terrible time with her lungs.

But she did pick her colours--pink and white, surprise!

Here's a bit of pretty for you.

Traditional Closet by Edina General Contractors REFINED LLC

Bringing this baby in on time is truly going to be a challenge!

Punch List:

Empty out every last little thing

Take down remaining shelving

Tear down closet   Almost there! 

Repair dry wall and rebuild closet bit

Prep and paint walls --We've bought half the paint!

Tear out carpet

Lay down new flooring

Install new light fixture (in the old closet)
Install drapes for privacy and doorway

Find a bench/make one

Assemble Pax Wardrobes

Install closet rod(s)

Install shoe shelves

Figure out Jewellery storage/display

Move clothes back in.

Here is Week One: Creating a Dressing Room from Chaos, if you want to catch up.

Here is the link to all the other, ahem, guests participating in this craziness.