May 2, 2014

Tiny Closets - DIY Bedroom Closet Makeover

Our home was built in the 1950s and like most older homes, it has lots of charm and very tiny closets. Exhibit A: our bedroom closet is exactly the same size as our hall closet. This means there is not nearly enough storage for both of us to store our clothing. We do our best to limit the amount of clothing we have and store off season clothing in the basement, but even with that, the storage situation isn't great. The closet in our bedroom holds most of my clothing. Todd utilizes a dresser in our bedroom and any items he has that need to be hung up are stored across the hall in the closet in our office. It isn't a perfect system, but it works for us. Hopefully in the near future we'll get new dressers that better suit our folded clothing needs. 

Our bedroom closet measures approximately 35" wide and between 30" and 35" deep.  
Unfortunately I forgot to take true before pictures. I was just so darn excited to finally get this closet under control and get some much needed storage, I had already emptied most of it out. Before the floor was covered in boots, a box of clothes and other nonsense. 
The two shelves up top hold two storage cubes each. The cubes on the top shelf hold Todd's socks and underwear and the shelf below holds mine. This system works great for us. Before when this closet only held my things the top shelf was wasted since I couldn't reach anything on the top shelf without a step ladder. These shelves were already here when we moved in and were perfectly spaced apart for these cubes I picked up from Target.
What DIY project is complete without a good supervisor?
We decided to leave the top shelf as is but wanted to increase our storage functionality in the lower half of the closet. Originally the closet bar hung directly below the lower shelf. In order to add drawers at the bottom and still keep space to hang longer dresses we decided to cut the bar into two sections. Todd was the mastermind behind the structure of the new support boards. We measured the width of two cubes and cut the shelf and rod to fit. We then measured and cut a new vertical support board. 
This support board is mounted with angle brackets to the wall and shelf. The rod is mounted using standard closet rod brackets from the hardware store. We may have gone overboard on the angle brackets, but they are mostly hidden and we wanted to be sure that they would support the weight of the shelf and any clothing hanging from the rods. We then mounted the brackets and rod on the right side of the new support board. After everything was installed, we painted the support board white.
We used parts of the Ikea Algot Wall System to increase our storage in the lower half of the closet. This system was super easy to install. You simply attach the long vertical brackets to the wall and snap in the brackets that hold either the shelves or drawers. The vertical brackets were too tall for our space so we cut them down to fit.

We opted for one large mesh drawer on the bottom with two smaller drawers above. We also added a shelf above the top drawer. The shelf isn't really functional for storing things since the hanging clothing is directly above it. However, it is functional for preventing the items in the drawer from getting caught on the articles of clothing hanging above, allowing the drawer to glide easily. I really liked that the Algot system brackets are easy to adjust and maneuver. If we ever tire of this system or decide we want shelves instead of drawers, it is easy to swap out parts and adjust their placement on the  track system.
On the door of our closet hangs a key rack and a picture frame, fitted with window screen. I made the frame by stapling standard window screen material to the back of the frame, and a decorative ribbon to hang it. These two pieces are perfect for storing necklaces and earrings. Just inside the closet Todd installed a couple hooks so that I could hang belts and my purse.

So there you have it, our itty bitty master bedroom closet. I found the Ikea parts online ahead of time and drew out the plans before making the trip to the store to purchase everything. We completed the entire project in a weekend. We started out Saturday with a trip to Ikea and the hardware store to pick up all the materials and Sunday was spent doing touch up paint to the walls and allowing the shelving paint to dry. We are both hoping this new system will help keep things nice and organized.

Do you have any tips for organizing a small space?


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