Closet Organizer

[JimK]

This is a project I worked on a couple of years ago. I've been away from this site for awhile (I rotate through different hobbies), but I was recently reminded of this project and thought I'd post. Especially since most of what I know about woodworking I learned here.

I used Melamine purchased from Home Depot and made all cuts with a circular saw. All joinery was done using pocket holes. The separately assembled units are mounted to the wall by resting them on cleats that run the length of the walls 12" above the floor. This provides additional storage space underneath (and allowed me to leave the carpet in). The units are supported at the top by a cleat and pocket hole screws are also used underneath the fixed shelves that meet up with studs in the wall.

The drawer insides are made of 1/2" Baltic Birch and are joined using pocket holes. The faces are poplar with routed edges and finished with a paint that I had them mix to match the color of the melamine.

I was really happy with the overall cost and how this turned out using the standard size Melamine products from Home Depot. I also learned to have a great appreciation for pocket hole joinery.

Thanks,

Jim K.

[radhak]

The only difficulty you seem to have had was in photographing it ! You have made the best use of available space.

Very neat, and professional looking! Getting the paint mixed to match was a good idea. I should remember that.

Great job!

[Pappy]

Great work and a timely posting. A remake of the wif's closet is in the soon to be offings. These pics should give her more ideas than I want to think about!

[just started]

Closet? I call that closer to a ROOM!

[JimK]

The only difficulty you seem to have had was in photographing it ! You have made the best use of available space.

Very neat, and professional looking! Getting the paint mixed to match was a good idea. I should remember that.

Great job!

Thanks. It was really tough getting pictures to do it justice in that tight area. The wider angle lens includes more in the picture but starts to distort it...

I started out using a white paint that I had on hand and the drawer face just stood out too much. I brought a piece of the melamine to the store and it worked out well.

Jim K.

[JimK]

Great work and a timely posting. A remake of the wif's closet is in the soon to be offings. These pics should give her more ideas than I want to think about!

If you're planning to do some design I really recommend going to EasyClosets.com. I have no affiliation with them but I'm willing to risk sounding like I'm pushing them because I can't say enough about how much their design tools helped me out. They were really easy to use. I feel guilty not buying anything from them after all the use I got out of them. I just went back to their site today and found that my design was still saved there after 2 years!

I took a couple of screen prints (and used Photoshop) to give an idea of what's there. Picture #1 shows the left, middle and right walls that I wound up with. Picture #2 shows one of the walls and how you can build the units. You identify how wide each section of the wall unit is. You can then choose to have drawers, shelves, hangers and a bunch of other options. This really helped me for deciding what I wanted where.

Since this particular design was a walk-in closet (they have other configurations as well), the 3d view (picture #3) gave me an idea of how functional it would be. It allows you to walk inside and around and drop walls for better views.

It's a lot better than building it and then hearing "can you move that unit over to the other wall? Take that shelf out and add a drawer. No, put it back..."

Jim K.

[JimK]

Closet? I call that closer to a ROOM!

. The actual dimensions are 70" x 105" (which I had to look up in the design on that site I just mentioned). We moved in about 6 years ago, and I never had a closet this big. The original owner had a couple of sagging shelves running the length of the walls and that was it. I really wanted to take advantage of it. These days its pretty much full to capacity...

Jim K.

[cabinetman]

If you're planning to do some design I really recommend going to EasyClosets.com. I have no affiliation with them but I'm willing to risk sounding like I'm pushing them because I can't say enough about how much their design tools helped me out. They were really easy to use. I feel guilty not buying anything from them after all the use I got out of them. I just went back to their site today and found that my design was still saved there after 2 years!

Jim K.

That is a cool site. They give a lot to work with. Hard to believe they save your stuff.
.

[JimK]

... Hard to believe they save your stuff.
.

I know, that surprised me. When you think about it though, they're really only saving dimensions and settings so the disk space probably isn't all that much. I just checked with my wife to see if we ever get any email solicitations from them (I used her email address). She said we might have in the beginning, but she doesn't recall getting anything from them.

Jim K.

[twistsol]

That looks fantastic and a similar project is on my list, but way down on the list.

[footprintsinconc]

jim,

amazing outcome of the closet. thanks for sharing the website, its definitely a very use tool. my wife loves the layout and is now asking me to look into organizing our walkin.

great job!

[drumpriest]

Looks really good. I did a small one, but nothing on this scale, that looks very useful. If I do another closet I'll be using that site, for sure, thanks!

[lrogers]

Nice, well thought out job. Looks like you were able to make use of every inch of space you had to work with.

[JimK]

Thanks to everyone for the compliments. With regard to the use of all available space, that was a big goal of mine and I tried quite a few different combinations before I came up with this one. The pictures are misleading because they make it look like its a tight squeeze in there (for example the last one with the ironing board rest), but it really is pretty comfortable moving around and pulling clothes in/out out on the hangers.

Again, I have to give thanks back to this site because most of my skills I picked up from here. I plan to be visiting more often...

Thanks,

Jim K.