My Very Own North Pole

Remember this awesome before and after?  After dealing with all that nasty dust and dirt, I decided that I would no longer store my Christmas decor in the garage.  I was determined to never again have to deal with Christmas bins covered in layers of grime.

So I brought all of my Christmas decor into the house and when you saw it last it looked like this.

Do you see the door that is open?  That door leads to an unfinished closet underneath the basement stairs.

When we first moved in to this house we thought about finishing this closet space and turning it into a play nook/reading room for the kids.  But they have plenty of areas to play in and we don’t have much of an attic space so using this closet for storage was a better use of space for us.  My hub was previously using this closet for his work supplies (he works from home).  I helped him relocate his stuff to another smaller closet (he didn’t really need this much space) so that I could claim this piece of storage gold.

This unsuspecting closet under the stairs looks like this now.

I wrapped the support pole in Christmas paper to help it blend in better.

There is a place for everything and it all fits right inside this closet!  I even made a shelf with some scrap wood and hand saw.

This shelf houses some old kitchen canisters with a few craft supplies.

I brought in a lamp I already had, that didn’t have a home, because while this closet was outfitted with an overhead light it was just a single bulb fixture.

To make that single bulb light fixture look a little more “North Pole” and a lot less “unfinished closet space”, I wrapped some tinsel around the base and then used some twine to attach a mini-shade.

The finishing touch is a number 25 sticker I already had in my stash.

The very best part about this project is that other than a little time ( I used concrete paint on the floor in here and that took about an hour to complete) all this project cost me was $1.99!  I only purchased one thing – holiday address labels!  Everything else I already had!

The fact that this closet is unfinished actually worked in my favor because I was able to use all of those recessed areas for storage.  If the walls were drywalled I wouldn’t have been able to do this.

Pulling as much as I could out of bins and using the walls to hang things also helped me to cut down on the number of bins I needed.  I actually donated 3 large empty storage bins to the Goodwill.  I was really amazed at how well all my stuff fit in here.  I thought for sure that I’d never be able to make it all fit and still be able to walk in here.  Using plate hangers, nails, and hooks, I was able to make storage in this closet easy to access.  Plus it makes the closet look really festive!  Now I get to have a little bit of Christmas all year long!

I love having all my Christmas stuff in one easy to get to and garage-grime-free place!  Everything from my wrapping supplies…..

to my crafting stash, holiday dishes, and decor all fit right inside my very own little North Pole!

Chalkboard can do no wrong in my book!

Where do you keep your holiday decor?  Do you ever feel like it is a little ridiculous that we have so much “stuff” for one small part of the year?  I know that Christmas isn’t about the decorations, but it certainly adds to the spirit of the season!  At least next year when it’s time to once again deck the halls I won’t have to deal with any nasty garage grime.

*Linking up at Thrifty Decor Chick