His Closet Says Roar

These days animals are tha thang for Mr. B.  He probably knows roughly 30-40 animals and species.  He studies his animal books like he's studying for a pop quiz.  I took that as a clue to get something animal-ish into his room somehow.  I've seen all over the web/pinterest where people are using toy animals for wall decor and even turning them into book ends.  

His closet needed some organization.  It's got two shelves and two hanging rods and that's it.  It's not enough for all of his ties, shoes and hats.  

This is where our animals come in.  Making an animal-hook-board would be perfect for hanging all of his ties and hats which would leave more room on the shelf for his shoes.

This would be a pretty simple project since we had most of the material and it didn't require hardly any big tools (Jer's saw).  Only supplies needed were: board, toys, stain (or paint), drill, exacto knife (or something to cut the animals in half) and screws (for the animals and board).  Our board we used was a 36 inch pine board.  And our animals I got a few months back from hobby lobby.  

First things first....cut the animals in half.  

To my surprise they were solid.  Originally I was going to use gorilla glue and glue them to the board if they were hollow but since they were solid Jer said we ought to drill a hole in them and then drill a screw through them.  This way they would be sturdy.  As in, they could almost hold my weight.  #notevenclose

After the board was stained and dried I laid the animals out to place them.  I did a lot of rearranging and strategizing to the get most out of this board.  

I marked the spots and Jer drilled the holes for the screws.

Mr. Perfectionist decided that he didn't want the screw head sticking out on the back (he wanted the board to be flush against the wall) so he used a certain drill bit to make a hole bigger on the backside for the screw head to fit in.  

We started noticing a certain smell coming from a certain toddler.  Diaper changing break.

Now that everyone was clean Jer then drilled his holes into the animals.

As he was drilling the animals....wait, that sounded ummm not so good.  As he was making his holes Boston was having fun putting the screws into the board.  It was like a cool and manly puzzle to him.  So instead of taking the risk of something getting messed up Jer got a scrap piece of board and drilled holes in it for Boston to play with.  He was content for a good 30 minutes with that thing.

He would put the screws in and then turn the board over and dump them out.  

And we have a giraffe.  One down eleven to go.

Since the toddler was at bay we proceeded to get the rest of the animals screwed onto the board.

The hidden screws.

Moved spots and stiiilll working on his board.  He even went and found him some longer screws.  Totally not child friendly but he loved it.

Then he went upstairs and got his drill and started drilling holes into the animals behinds like daddy.  He watches everything his daddy does.  Why do all these sentences sound weird to me?  I have a 13 year old mind, I guess.  :)

Here's B's closet.  Bare and unorganized.

Here she is all screwed in.  We're gonna call this the animal wall.  Roar.

Much better.  His shelf is now dedicated to only his shoes.  

Ties on the left side, belt in the middle and hats on the right.

He had 3 hats and 3 ties I didn't have room to hang so we'll be adding a second board for those and anymore that he gets.  

Next up is more shelving.  There's plenty of room for lots of shelving but it's the design we always get stuck on.  Until then, we'll enjoy the newly added space for his shoes and organization for his accessories.