There’s a small doorway in our living room/library that enters a closet under the stairway. I think it’s a bit smaller than Harry’s closet, but nevertheless, we always call it the Harry Potter Closet. It was packed full of miscellaneous art canvases, bins of Legos, puzzles and games, and anything else that didn’t have a home downstairs. Of course, it was unfinished, with original plaster that fell from the walls bits at a time whenever someone went up or down the stairs, so everything in it was always dirty and dusty. It was time to “organize”.
We opted to turn it into a cleaning closet. Somewhere to store cleaners, mops, brooms, sweepers, etc. Our first step was to knock out all of the loose plaster. Instead of putting in drywall, we opted for a white wallboard. Some cheap vinyl plank flooring, a lot of caulk and white paint to cover the trim and stairs, and the little closet is a lot less dusty!
Just because we finished the renovation, doesn’t mean we’ve finished the organizing though! We put up shelves and an outlet strip to charge sweeper batteries (and also drill and battery powered lawn equipment). We have hooks for mops and brooms, a bar to hang spray bottles on, and hooks on the door to hold the step ladder we often use around the house. Unfortunately, it’s housing dog and cat food at the moment, and we still haven’t decided if we need to install more hooks or how we will finish organizing it.
However, it is functional, which is a lot better than it was before. I plan to have a small house tool bag stored in here so there is no need to dig through the shop for a screwdriver. I had plans dining room bench seating that would store the dog and cat food, but those plans have changed. I’m not sure If I want to get containers to store the food in for this small closet, or if we will come up with another solution somewhere else in the house.