Closet makeover

The house only has two closets.  So when we realized that one of them was taken up almost entirely by shelving and a vent, we knew some demolition was in order.  I also wanted to paint the inside of the closet a sunny, fun yellow color.  I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking for tutorials for redoing the closet, and Home Depot for materials.  It turns out that that is a huge waste of time.  Here is how you redo a closet. 

1. Measure your clothes to figure out how much space you need (this can include length, so you can hang your rod as high as it needs). 
2. Measure your new closet to figure out how much space you can have.
3. Measure your new closet to figure out how big a shelf you can fit over your closet rod.
4. Measure your bins that go on the shelf to figure out how much space you need to leave between the shelf and the ceiling.  Alternately, wing this. 
5. Go to home depot. You can choose between the expensive wooden rod that you can saw yourself, the metal rod you need a hacksaw to saw (but is cheaper, except not really, since you have to buy a hacksaw) or the adjustable metal rod that already has easy screw in end pieces.  You can also choose between shelf brackets that also support the closet rod, and ones that don't. I opted for ones that do, since they were cheaper.  You can also choose between wood and the particleboard coated with plasticy stuff that I can't remember the name for (I'll just call it Ikeaboard).  I went with the Ikeaboard and I like that it already has a finished look.  Plus, it was half the price. 
6. Crowbar out the old closet shelves.  My husband did it for me while I was out on a run, so I have no instructions for this.
7. Remove the old closet rails. 
8. Prime and paint the new closet. (A friend and I did this, and she did most of it while I sat, stepped in, and knocked over paint and very poorly painted the area behind the vent, which was time consuming and hard to get to.) I skipped the primer, and to be honest, it looks really terrible. If I had taken the extra ten minutes to prime it, it would look much better. 
9. Install the new closet shelf.  Start with the brackets.  Then screw in the shelf.  It is very important that they be level and at the same height.  You may need several attempts.  Also, be sure to use drywall anchors and the correct size screw. 
10. Add the closet rod.  If you bought the cheap adjustable one, it already comes with mounting hardware.  Ta da!

Before:

 

After!

As much as I would have liked to have shelves in the closet, they simply didn't make sense where they were.  I'm planning on putting shoe storage in front of the vent, since there is about 10" of space there. 

It also took an entire quart of paint to pain this closet, probably because we didn't prime it.  But, I have four feet of hanging space for clothes, so it's a significant upgrade.