Not to long ago, I converted my closet underneath my staircase into a little hang out. If you read about my Pantry, https://prettytothet.com/pantry/, you may recall how my closet under my staircase was once a super large area of wasted space. When we moved into, what we now call home, there was a lot of work to be done. The space underneath our stairs was one of the places that needed some attention; we had ended up splitting this area in half, and making it into not only a closet area, but into a pantry as well. For more on that, please read my Pantry post!!!

With what I had left as, “closet space,” I used as an area for all of my arts and crafts supplies. I had a pretty big shelving unit, a large trunk, and a filing cabinet placed in the back of the closet. It was great, I had all of my things organized in this area and out of my husbands sight. My sewing machine, cricut, my rolling craft bag full of utensils, and a million other things that I call arts supplies were also stored in this area. As if we don’t have enough space throughout the house for the kids to hang out, one day I started thinking, “how cool would it be for the kids to have a cute little “escape/hide out.” I mean, when I was a kid, for whatever odd reason, the little, claustrophobic areas that had a smidge of coolness added to it, was the idea kick it spot. So, as usual, Mama Bear put herself out and gave up her crafts storage room and set out to make this area into a cute little hang out area.

So, first things first….. CLEAN!!! I went to town and cleaned the closet out first. I started by pulling everything out, organizing through all of my totes, getting rid of what I don’t need and looked around the house for new homes for everything else that I wanted to keep. I ended up going through all of my kids toys in their playroom and getting rid of a ton of toys that they had been piling up over the years that they don’t play with anymore, this created a ton of space for my stuff in their playroom closet. After cleaning out the closet under the stairs, deep cleaning took place, I had to bust out the mop, Clorox and wipes.

Now that the not so fun part is in the past, I had to throw a fresh coat of crisp white paint over the old bland off- white walls. Once I had the mood set with four freshly painted walls, it was time to go shopping! I made a TARGET TRIP and found all kinds of throw pillows. I knew that I needed a couple of mats for the ground to create the relaxing, happy place ambiance that I had in mind, so I set out in search for the mats first. I found two pretty cozy ones, one that was super cute & way me, and the other one was very simple but very comfortable. Once I had the mats in the bag, I went pillow crazy and found several adorable throw pillows to toss in my new Harry Potter closet; everything is turning out Pretty to the T, so far. Now onto T.V. shopping. I found a Roku T.V. that I felt would be good for the kids to watch and hopefully take care of and also bought a mount to hang the T.V. to the wall with.

I made several floating shelves for particular places throughout the house and decided to use two of them for this new hang out spot. After hanging the two shelves, I decided to put a couple of pictures and a sign on them. In the corner of the room; I bought a mini stool and used it as a little table, beneath that stool, I put a mini basket for miscellaneous items.

The most difficult part to this project was running power into it. Originally, the closet did not have an outlet inside of it. This closet space is in the center of my house and the area that I am working on shares a wall with the dining-room. I have enough outlets in my dining-room, so I decided to steal one from that room. I had Ryan shut the power off to the house and then he flipped the outlet from the dining-room and faced it into the new Harry Potter closet. Once we flipped it, we patched up any holes that were needing to be patched, textured, and then painted those areas…. NOW, I HAVE POWER IN THERE!!! With the new outlet in place, I was able to plug the T.V. in & then turn on, my favorite part of this project…….the ceiling starry lights! It’s now ready to hang out in! My kids love watching T.V in there, even if they already have unlimited space watching T.V. in their bedrooms and in the loft. I know for my little ones, they like to be downstairs when Ryan and I are down here watching T.V. but don’t necessarily like watching what we watch, so they enjoy just going in their now, knowing we’re one room away from them opposed to us being downstairs and them upstairs. I think it’s a comfort thing; they like knowing that we’re close to them. As for my two older ones, they’re your typical teenagers who like to just separate themselves from the rest of the world, so this has become an escape room for them. Either way, it has become a win for all of my kiddos!!!