Closet Organizer How To

When I did the reveal of our master bedroom closet l had people ask me how we made it, so this post will be the nuts of bolts of making our closet organizer.

I had found this image of a closet organizer on Pinterest. I really liked the amount of storage capacity within the compact foot print. Our closet was long and narrow so I thought this might be the perfect solution for our closet. My husband was able to find plans for it online and figure out how to adjust them for our closet.

Here is how he did it, in his own words!

The closet remodel started with finding these plans online

I am not going to recreate the instructions, but outline my process using them, and give tips I discovered along the way. The great thing about these plans is they are easy to customize for any size closet. Here is how I customized it for our closet:

One of the first adjustments I made was to expand the overall shelf unit to be a little deeper. Instead of 4 boards deep, I adjusted the plans to be 5 boards deep. I added a 1x4 board to the shelf adding 3-1/2 inches to the depth of the closet organizer. More room for clothes!

The plans call for 3 feet between leg supports on the closet. The pipe for hanging clothes would go in that 3 foot gap on either side of the closet. What was remaining in the closet width would be the width of the middle shelf. Considering the width of our closet, if I were to have stuck with those dimensions, it would have left the width of the middle shelf too small to be practical. I decided to lessen the length for hanging clothes by 3 inches on each side.

With measurements decided, I needed to select what type of lumber to purchase. The project calls for 1x4’s and 2x4’s. The hint here is the straighter the lumber, the easier it is to deal with and square up. I chose pine, however I used a better grade of pine on the upright wood pieces rather than the shelves to help keep things square. It definitely made things easier.

Marie wanted the wood to be dark for our closet so I stained the wood with this Minwax Dark Walnut wood stain. A tip that worked well was to sand and stain the boards prior to assembly. I cut the boards to size after they were sanded and stained (and had dried). This really created a nice clean look with the stain on the boards. It would have been trickier to stain the boards after assembly. If I were to do it again, I would cut the boards first (before sanding and staining), then predrill and countersink the holes for attaching the shelves to the frame. This method would require more precise calculations of board lengths, so calculate and measure twice, cut once.

The other major material needed was the pipe, used to hang clothes on. The pipe is easily available at Home Depot or Menards. It comes in 3’ or 10’ sections. Since I had shortened that part of the closet, I needed a custom length. Home Depot was great at helping me determine the size and then they cut it and threaded the ends for me. Here is a link to the 3' size. If you search the Home Depot website you will find the other lengths available. And here are the galvanized end caps I used to cap the ends.

For the final assembly, the online plans had great instructions. I assembled my frame legs outside the room, then brought them into the closet to attach the shelves. While assembling the frames, it is important to know if there are any specific height requirement for any of the shelves. The bracing for them needs to be set at this point.

We gave it plenty of drying time before loading our clothes on it. We also decided against any sort of top coat as we wanted a more matte look, but you could add that if you wanted it.

The closet organizer is sleek, good looking, and adds so much more storage to our closet!

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