Hell's Closet

I've crabbed about my redecorating misadventures before. But nothing I have experienced in my summer career as a Home and Garden Network novitiate, could ever have prepared me for my "Bedroom Closet" adventure.

Our home was built in 1970 and had a spacious master bedroom, but it came saddled with the Rhode Island of closets, The White Castle Hamburger of dressing suites, the M&M of walk-ins.

This wasn't a small closet. It was more of a minuscule, vertical coffin. Back in the days when college students packed phone booths, it would've held maybe one kid. The shoe rack accommodated a pair, one shoe at a time. There was a shelf above the rod on the far wall. The term far wall is a bit inaccurate. After all, there can't even be a "far" wall in a two dimensional space. This closet had height, width (a barely measurable amount of each) and nearly as much depth as a vapid, Hollywood starlet. If you stepped inside, the tips of your shoes would protrude into the family room beyond that mythical far wall. If you had a pot-belly, fully entering was impossible. It was abundantly clear that the very souls of all those that had ventured into the near reaches of this closet screamed for a remodel.

On a bright, disarmingly sunny morning, I emptied the clothes from the closet. Oddly, this took a couple of hours. And the clothes and shoes and purses and what-not that filled the inches by inches closet space, consumed nearly an entire ten by ten room when finally exposed to air.

I don't think that the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt had that much stuff crammed into their pyramids. I firmly believe that some items might have lasted for thousands of years with the air squeezed out of them. For, as I laid out some of my wife's older skirts and blouses they spontaneously turned to dust.

Brushing off my hands, I faced the demolition phase with the determination of a beaver, eager to build his lodge. This was where the fun started...and quickly drew to a close.

It is strong testimony to the craftsmanship of the men who built this home, that nearly every nail I pulled from the closet took with it a jagged chunk of wallboard. When I finally got the shelf and rods out, it looked as though I had taken the thing apart with a shotgun. There were holes at nearly every height and on every wall. There were even holes on walls that never had a shelf or rod, from the occasional errant back swing.

In addition, the t.v. cable for two rooms was routed through this closet. Loops of cable were stapled to the wall everywhere, because the cable installer made all the lines too long. "In case you want to move your set." That's cable-speak for "I'm too lazy to measure how much I need."

When I pried those staples from the wall, I found I had nearly enough extra cable to make a rope for hanging and a sturdy noose. I toyed with inviting the guy back. But eventually decided that fun would have to wait.

Finally, everything was out of the closet, and I found I could actually move in there...if turning in place can be called moving. I had carefully drawn out plans for putting new, vinyl-coated wire rods and shelving in the closet in the most efficient manner possible. I had purchased and assembled all the materials and lined them up like little vinyl-coated soldiers along the wall of the bedroom.

I'd done the math. With the help of a little quantum mechanics, I might actually be able to open a worm-hole to the closet dimension, and there hang twice as much as before...and still have room to turn in place. But first, I had to patch the drywall and paint the place.

I considered removing the drywall entirely, since most of it was gone already, but decided it was better that the corners of the closet meet than there be places for evil spirits to take up residence. Three gallons of wall-joint compound and 687 feet of paper tape later, the closet looked like what a mummy's wrappings must have looked like...to the mummy.

It was time for a break. My body was telling me it was time to hire someone, but I only have the time for these projects when I'm off work and therefore reluctant to spend money that isn't being replenished. I dined with my lovely wife, who prepared our ceremonial ham and swiss cheese remodeling lunch, while the plaster dried. As I sat, my joints got stiffer and I was reminded of the meaning of pain. And more was yet to come.

Thus began the sanding. When it was done, where there had been carpet, was a wall-to-wall, plaster dune. I could imagine someone cresting the top of it on a quad. Then there was me. My hair, usually salt and pepper, was white. In fact, I was white everywhere. I looked like an Italian Renaissance sculpture; Michelangelo's "Fat Jewish Kid." I got my trusty shop vac and forty tankfuls later, had a dust-free closet. It was at that point that the sun set and my body broke into a million painful pieces.

There are several over-the-counter remedies for the kind of discomfort I was feeling. Chief among them is Scotch. And it's not necessary to spend an inordinate amount of money on the name brands, like Pinch or Johnnie Walker Black. You're just paying for their advertising budgets. For the purpose of killing pain, even the cheapest house-brand of rot-gut on the shelf will alleviate one's symptoms by the third or fourth tumbler. And in therapy is how I spent that night.

By the next day, my vision was fuzzy. My head was pounding and I could barely keep Pepto Bismol down. But I'd made it through the night and after a long, hot shower, I re-entered the urban jungle that called itself my closet.

This time, I was armed with a paint brush and a gallon of white primer. I've often felt that the use of a white primer, when the final coat was also to be white was a waste of time. But as I've tackled these projects over the years, I've found that at cocktail parties, the mere mention that one has primered a wall garners oohs and aahs of admiration. It's sort of like a cute dog being a chick magnet...except that this draws attention from other do-it-yourselfers. The adulation makes the six bucks a gallon and the time spent more than worthwhile.

I spread a drop-cloth on what was left of the carpet, and began to paint with careful strokes. It's important to cover the area as completely as possible, so that you will be unable to tell where you have painted and where you haven't when you go to apply the same color of the final coat later. That way, you will likely have to return and buy a second gallon of the expensive paint to make sure you have covered everything.

No one ever buys both gallons at once. The revelation that you can't see where it's painted and where it's not, always comes as a surprise. I think it's a species-specific thing. We are genetically unsuited to predict that we will run out of paint. The plumbers among us can relate to this. All plumbing projects require at least one extra trip to the hardware store. Even professional plumbers face this. Though for them, they simply charge for the extra time and mileage.

For the rest of us, we have to clean up as best we can and head to the home improvement center, usually smeared in whatever paint or gunk we were using. In the process, we naturally consume extra time and gasoline. The employees at the store giggle and point at the fool who didn't plan. It's kind of like treating the Home Depot to dinner and a show.

So, I washed out the paint brush, scrubbed the drips from my glasses, dragged a comb through my hair to separate the clumps and went off to buy another gallon. Of course, when I bought the first can, it was on sale. This time it cost me six dollars more. This was quickly becoming more than a closet remodel. It's scope was approaching a government contract.

For some reason I couldn't explain, the rest of the painting went without incident. And when I was done, I had a beautiful white closet. Of course, it was an empty shell with no shelves nor rods to hang anything.

Then I figured out why the last of the painting had been such a smooth affair. I was being saved for the slaughter. The vinyl-coated wire shelves and other hardware which I had so carefully planned for, would be useless without CUSTOM MODIFICATIONS. I had to cut, trim, bend, twist, drill, hack, cajole and pray for each and every fitting that went into that horrific, white, black hole.

At the close of day two, when my planned project was to have been completed, I had one half of one shelf installed. My hands were bloodied and scraped. My knuckles ached in places I didn't know I had. My body was contorted from working upside down more than half the time, and I lay on the paint-covered drop cloth on the floor of the closet, screaming in agony for my wife to bring me a scotch.

She was outside, lounging by the pool. When she finally heard me and came in, merciful scotch in hand, she reminded me that when I was finished in here, the pool needed vacuuming. All I could do was whimper until I fell asleep where I lay. That night, I dreamed I had gone to Hell. I don't recall all the details, except to say that it definitely resembled a closet. When I awoke the next morning, I discovered I was right.

Day Three - Without food or water, with no hope of rescue, I trudged on through the vinyl-coated forest canopy, praying for the release of a quick death. Section after section of wire-rack jungle grasses fell to the buzz of my Sawzall as I feverishly worked my way towards salvation. Hole after hole drilled and filled with plastic wall anchors. Finally, as the sun was setting in the west, I caught a glimpse of it at the edge of the vinyl-coated underbrush. Civilization was in sight. I would survive! My wife met me at the clearing, ham and swiss reward in one hand and a chaser over ice in the other. She spoke five words to me that made me well up with tears.

"That closet is the bomb!"

Then she had a few more that made those tears flow.

"Eat, then you can put the clothes back. I've gotta meet the girls at Pilates."

Even as I write these words, I can't help but bawl.