Closet Capers

Earlier this week, Jack and I embarked on our first home improvement project. We were super fortunate that our house was basically move-in ready when we bought it. Evidenced by the fact that we closed on Friday morning and were sleeping there Friday evening. There was really nothing that needed to be done to make it "liveable." Which, if you've ever done any remodeling, you know is pretty awesome.

But after a week or so of being in the new house and trying to get things put away and organized, there was one thing we noticed that was severely lacking - and that was the master bedroom closet. It's a decent size, but the shelving left much to be desired.



Closet fail - one lousy shelf.

Yep - that's it. One, L-shaped shelf. On top of that, it was linen closet shelving. What? You don't know the difference between linen closet shelving and wardrobe shelving? Try hanging something from a linen closet shelf and you'll immediately notice the problem - hangers aren't free to slide back and forth. Linen closet shelving has those little wires every inch or so which makes hanging clothes rather...annoying, to say the least. Not a big deal if you're just placing things on top of the shelf, but if you're trying to hang clothes it's less than ideal. On top of that, the shelving was secured (poorly) with drywall anchors and some were already coming loose. 

Drywall anchor - falling out of the drywall

Yeah, that doesn't lend a lot of confidence to the ability of those shelves to hold lots of clothes, which has led to assorted piles of clothing throughout the bedroom. It's not pretty. Nor does it make getting ready in the morning very fun. 

Recognizing that this state of being simply would not do, we decided to take down the old shelving and replace it with shelves that better suited our needs. Something sorta like this perhaps? 





Yes please. From here.



Or this?



Yessss. From here.

Ok, or maybe not. How about we just replace it with Rubbermaid shelves that actually suit our purposes? Great idea! So off we went to Lowe's to obtain the necessary parts. We purchased braces to attach to studs, wood screws to use to attach the braces, new wardrobe shelving, brackets and a stud finder. In a moment of home improvement hysteria, I also grabbed this fancy corner shelf which...sadly just didn't work out. (It's since been returned. Sad face.)

Our goal was to create a double hanging space on one wall (which would accomodate shirts on top and pants on bottom), then create another, taller hanging space along the other wall to accomodate longer things (dresses, suits, etc.) You can see spaces like I'm describing in the dream closets pictured above.

We measured the space before we went to the store, since they will cut the shelving to fit (very handy - and a free service!). Then we came back and removed the old shelving. Removing the old screws and drywall anchors led to some pretty big gouges in the wall, so we also picked up drywall spackle, a sanding block and retrieved the house paint the previous owners left behind.

After carefully measuring the height we wanted and checking for studs (about 8 times each - we were a little paranoid), Jack grabbed the power drill and attached the brackets to the wall, drilling 3-inch wood screws directly into the stud. (We were 100% on stud finding - hooray!) Once the rails were in, we snapped the brackets into the rails and then spent the majority of our time trying to coax the shelves into the brackets.

We used the tracks pictured, attaching brackets & shelves
to them. Picture from Rubbermaid

At the end of the evening, the closet looked like this:

This picture doesn't show the second hanging shelf (we had to get it recut after the corner shelf fiasco) but it does show the rails, with their shelving and the assorted drywall patches we had to do to cover the holes from the original shelving.

And here's the grand finale with everything sanded, touched up and hung! Quite the improvement over the original shelving in the room.

Forgive the blurry pic - iPhone + light = fail.

I have a few words of advice if you're looking to tackle a project like this:

1. Make sure all your parts are the same brand. We ran into an issue with a rail that wasn't Rubbermaid after we already had it drilled into the wall. As you can imagine, it was a little stressful.
2. Plan the space before you go and stick to the plan. We had measured everything out ahead of time but then I was lured in by the corner shelf, which changed the plan in the store and didn't end up working anyway.
3. Keep a cool head. It was pretty stressful realizing we had the wrong parts, or not enough of the right parts and involved multiple trips to the store, which is super annoying. But in the end, we're super happy with our new, functional closet space.

On the upside, I think the fact that we successfully tackled our first DIY project without a fight bodes pretty well for our marriage. :)