DIY Locker Project

I have developed a new semi-obsession:  following several local buy/sell/trade pages on Facebook.  It's like a giant virtual garage sale - people post pics of things they're selling and you just scroll through to peruse the offerings.  If you see something you want, you comment on it and then contact the seller via private message to make arrangements to meet.  Since there are pages for very specific local areas - even neighborhoods - this means that you can get the benefits of yard sale-ing without having to actually drive around and visit dozens of individual sales, and you never have to travel very far.  When I buy or sell something, I usually just meet people in the library parking lot up the street, which is super convenient since we go there all the time anyway.  I have scored some great deals and I've also made a little money and gotten rid of some clutter by selling stuff on there as well.  If you've never searched for local buy/sell/trade sites, I highly recommend it.

I want to share my favorite find so far.  I bought a set of school lockers for $30.  I knew as soon as I saw them that they would be the perfect solution to our unfortunate lack of closets and cluttered, unorganized side-entry hallway where we shed our coats and shoes.  I also loved the idea of our home school having its own lockers!  There were two banks of three lockers, for a total of six, which means one locker for each family member plus two more for guests.

Forgive me, but I forgot to take a "before" pic, so you will have to form one in your mind.  They were just painted a plain white and the door fronts were a bit rusty.  My wonderful husband cleaned them up and fixed/reinforced a few things, and then painted the frames and insides with about 10 cans of this:

Rustoleum's Hammered Finish Silver Paint

There were probably cheaper options (10 cans @ $5.77 each = $57.70) but we went with this paint because it looks nice and will leave a very durable finish.  When he finished that step, I painted the door fronts with a charcoal grey chalkboard paint.  I thought it would be fun for each person to be able to decorate their own door, and change it up from time to time.  I am very happy with how this product covered and how it looks, and it was very reasonably priced at $9.67 for a quart.  I did two coats and I still have over half the can left so I can do another chalkboard project somewhere else in the house as well.

Rustoleum's Chalkboard Paint - I had mine tinted to the color "moonstone".

First, here is the "before" shot of my hallway.  We just had coat hooks on the wall and a heap of shoes below, as well as a catch-all shelf constantly piled with stuff.  Oh, and Noodle's dish, which we moved to the kitchen.

Aaaannnnndddd.... AFTER!

And finally, after 3 days' curing time for the paint, we were free to write on our lockers!  Yay!

 

I am beyond thrilled with how they turned out.  What do you think?