There were several motivating factors behind working on the hidey-hole again this week. One, the Mister was out of town again. Two, the boys discovered the Bey Blades cartoon on Netflix, and this inspired them to play with their Bey Blades and ask for even more Bey Blades. [Our response: LOLz! No. They have enough Bey Blades, and if the interior of their closet didn’t look like an agitated snow globe, they might discover they already have plenty.] Three, I was so close to finishing it that I knew if I didn’t do it soon I never would. It looked good enough where I could let it slide for a few months/years, and while letting things slide is my specialty, I’m trying to develop a new skill set.
Hidey-hole!
There isn’t much to say about the closet interior, so I’ll keep it brief. The cubbies hold socks, underwear, uniform shirts, and sports apparel. The bottom three cubbies have some cars and action figures.
I asked Mikey to put this old bat of his in the garage but he said he didn’t want it because it was a girl’s bat. Apparently, it’s pink. It’s not pink. It’s a faded red, but it makes no difference to him. I told him we could always keep it in the closet for self defense and he was all over that plan. The color of a bat makes no difference when you are defending the castle. I’ll hang it on a side wall with a bat hook so it stays out of the way.
When the boys are a little older, this top shelf will hold deodorant, cologne, and a mens valet. For now, they have some memorabilia and a flashlight.
It didn’t escape the eagles eyes of a few of you last week that I store the boys’ light sabers, guns, and swords in an old wrapping paper tub from Rubbermaid. Sticker’s still on, and will stay on because it’s an old Rubbermaid tub stuffed with weapons sitting in a closet. Keeping it classy. If you don’t have a closet that can hold a tub like this, consider the Rubbermaid under-bed sweater tubs. That’s what I used before to store all their weapons. If you wants something out and attractive, look at large umbrella stands.
/unsolicited advice
Here’s the other side of the closet. I still have to purge everything you see hanging. The TV we are donating to the annual juvenile Diabetes garage sale and the frames I’m hanging on the wall once I have some pictures printed.
When I showed the boys’ their closet I received a deafening round of golf claps. In others words, they really didn’t care. Then they realized they could hide in there (um, duh!) so they spent the rest of the afternoon playing Secret Agent and Spy Man. I wish Mikey would have let me take a picture of him wearing a clip-on tie with his skater t-shirt, sport coat, aviators, and fedora. Nico wore a pilot’s hat and those aggressive looking razor sunglasses guys wear, except his had Spider Man on the sides.
They played for hours with Mikey leading the charge (of course). At one point they reached a critical point in their mission and, thanks to Nico insisting on carrying an enormous Nerf gun, their cover was almost blown. Mikey, who wisely chose to carry the more discrete Cad Bane mini Blaster, told Nico that if he wanted to go on another mission with him he was going to have to be smart and carry a weapon that isn’t as big as he is. “We’re Secret Agents, Nico. Secret Agents. We can’t do anything secret if everyone sees you coming.”
This post was part of The William Morris Project, a weekly series that details the steps I am taking to create an intentional home. You can see more of my goals and completed projects here. To learn more about this project, start here.
Now it�s your turn! Feel free to share how you have lived according to the William Morris quote, �Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.� Made a plan? Cleaned a drawer? Bought a sofa? Tell us about it with a link or comment. A few guidelines:
- Please link to a specific post, not a general blog address.
- Your post must relate to your efforts to create an intentional home. I have a delete button, and I�m not afraid to use it.
- No links to giveaways, please.
- Let�s use this weekly link up as an opportunity to gather inspiration and motivation. Click links. Discover new people. Say hi and good job. I know I will.
Pity you can’t photograph secret agents in action. That would have been some good times. And thankfully, we can look back on Nico’s unfortunate choice of weaponry and laugh . . . seeing how their cover was not blown and all.
You know, many operatives on the home front do not receive proper appreciation for their work. So I’d just like so say, Operation Hidey-hole was a smashing success. Great job, Jules! :)
How is it possible you can talk about cleaning out a closet and be so entertaining? Amazing! And I’ve not had call for weapons storage in my life, but I’ll keep this in mind. :)
I swear, the first thing I noticed was the Rubbermaid container for the weapons. GENIUS. When I dragged the plastic arsenal out from under my son’s bed the other day when I was moving furniture around, I propped everything in the corner of the closet, but Nerf guns tend to slide out and hit me in the shins. Unfortunately, I don’t have one of those bins and I know I won’t be able to bring myself to purchase one just for the storage of those damn guns and light sabers, but maybe I can find a box of similar proportions around here…
Hidey-hole, check!
Organized closet, check!
Potential for hours of imaginary play, check!
Does cleaning grout count for William Morris? We do not have a large kitchen, but it opens up into an office/bonus room space about 10×15. It’s all tiled with 7.75″ tile and thick (more than 1/4″) grout. It’s black with dirt, but with vinegar and a nice stiff nylon scrub brush, it turns back to the original light beige nicely. This only works by hand though, and if you do some quick math you can realize the never-endingness. Sigh. I’m a little more than half done with just the kitchen and I’ve worked 7 days. (But only an hour or so a day, I’m not crazy.) And now I’m stuck because I need a new brush, the other is worn to a nub!
We also have a space we call the hidey hole–except ours is a truly creepy, bad movie sort of place at the back of a closet under our front stairs. Was relieved to see that your hidey hole is a much nicer spot! And can I just say that I sorta love you for not taking the sticker off the sword case? Thank you. Might just have to go and Pin that.
Rita, you know we have that exact same space, since we have the same house layout. I don’t go in there because it is probably full of spiders and gnawed bones. If my husband wants to go back there, fine. I have plenty of black clothes, widow’s weeds for months.
Ours isn’t full of any of those things, but our wiener dogs liked going in there to do their business. Not cool! So we nailed a board over the opening. Haven’t missed it at all!
Good for you for finishing the job. I am far too often guilty of getting things to a livable point and never getting back to really finish them off. This project has helped me improve in that area, but I am still no role model.
This post is making me really itchy for school to start (13 days!) so I can tackle my son’s closet. No way I can do it with him present, hovering around & trying to hoard every single thing. I did a WM post on cleaning his hoarder’s lair a year or so ago, and sadly it’s back to square one. Clearly I need a better system (or just need to get tougher).
Good for you on Officially Finishing & not letting it sit at the “good ’nuff” stage.
Here’s my William Morris project post. Thanks Jules!
I am copying the Weapon Storage.