I Made a Closet!

This is my first project, in wood, where I did everything from design to execution all by myself!
(aside from a little phone consultation on lumber)

Katie asked me one morning when she would be able to start using our closet in the master bedroom. I rolled over, grumbled something about summer vacation, and cuddled with the Frankster for another hour or so - but I never fell back asleep.

She was right.

The current closet installation didn't and wouldn't work. It was a dark cherry-red behemoth. It was drawers, shelves, and four hanging rods... that were a foot long and stuffed in behind the mirrored closet doors. Anyone who has ever seen the closet of an American Woman knows that four linear feet of hanging space isn't nearly enough. Factor in my dress shirts, and we will have a domestic dispute brewing.

A quick internet search confirmed me suspicions that an episode of COPS isn't filming in the area. Rather than go buy tank-top undershirts and a pack of Skoal, I opted for destruction of the closet monster.

Take a look at that thing. It was over seven feet tall, built of 2x4's and plywood. Not chip board, plywood. That son of a *gun weighed more than me.

I wrestled it to the front door, and had some neighborhood kids help me carry it to the refuse pile. *NOTE: I had them ask an adult before they were allowed to come into the house. Can never be too careful these days. I plastered up the holes left by the old closet design, and fitted the piece of wall board that was removed to fix our electrical disaster the week we bought the house. (Did I tell you about the tree that removed our electrical service? OH man that's a good one!) and then looked at what the closet was going to be.

My dad always taught me, measure twice, then double check it again. I grabbed a tapemeasure, checked if the closet was consistent in size, and drew up some plans for the closet. The other closets in house had the rail at 68 inches, and my average dress shirt hung at roughly 40 inches. Hanging rods were 14 inches from the back of the closet.

My plan was to make two rails (six feet of hanging space) with some shoe shelves beneath one half, and the second half would be for taller dresses. Above the hanging would be two shelves, they wouldn't were not very tall because sweaters and shoe boxes usually go on shelves, so tall stacks of sweaters fall when you take out the bottom one (which you inevitably need) so I just figured I can reach to the top for my stuff, and Katie has lower, more manageable, stacks at her reach.

Once all the basics were planned out, I went to get the lumber. For any of my students who find this: I not only planned everything out before I even looked at buying and cutting lumber (wood), I used measurement and math quite a bit. Before going to the store, I estimated how much lumber I was going to need, and you can see my shopping list in the top right of the planning page.

Plan first.

At Home Depot, I bought what I needed in pine, a box of screws, I perused some lamps and sanders, and strapped my wares to one of the most useful birthday presents ever! (Thank you wife!)

I stood in front of the closet and said to myself, where do I start? I looked at the big empty space, I looked at the notebook. I sipped my cup of coffee, and repeated the steps a number of times. Do I build shelves and run a support? Do I... and it hit me. 8 foot tall closet, 8 foot long center post. I ran to my pile of wood, and brought it in. BAM! It fit with a little coaxing, and I was under way!

Center post was secured to the wall with a vertical support, the shelves had supports that sprouted from there. In what seemed like no time, I was securing sides and fitting notched shelves into the first level! Rails were trimmed and  the second row of shelves was framed and ready to go. Along the way I put in the broken wallboard, and plastered that back into place too. Not bad for a first try, but I'm apprehensive to do the corner joint, and I just haven't done it yet.

Around 6:30, Katie got home from work and admired my work for a moment. She liked it a lot, but her look told me, "only two rails? Where will the rest of my clothes (and yours) go?" I explained that the alternative was a three rail system I discarded so she could keep shoes in the closet too...

Let's call this Plan B

I'm sure that Katie remembers it differently, so take a look at the comments or her own blog posts for the other perspective. Regardless, while she started on dinner, I removed the shelves and rod on the right, plastered the holes, measured some more, and modified my sketches. Nine linear feet of hanging space, three for taller dresses, two for shorter items like shirts, and an open floor.

Before lunch time the next morning, my closet looked like this:

This was Friday, and I got to work on finishing some exterior projects like porch lamps, house numbers, and just being outside for the afternoon. I figured I could have Katie use the palmsander, and we could polyurethane the closet and shelves on Saturday. BUT giant storms decided to knock out our electricity on Friday night. My friend Scott came over and helped me sand in the old fashioned style (w/o electricity effected the method of sanding, and the triple digit temperatures). I sanded a bit more and applied polyurethane to the closet when the electricity was finally restored on Monday.

Don't worry, there are more clothes.

Thanks Scott!

 We're going to let the poly dry another day or so, I need to finish the plaster patching, and then the closet will be pressed completely into service. I'll add a photo of the final product.

Some final notes, I build this without a couple tools I would like for the future. One was a descent set of clamps. A few of the supports coming from the wall, I would have liked to clamp them in place when I built them. Also a level. I didn't have one, so I measured more than a dozen times and really had to eyeball each piece to be sure it was as close to plumb (?) as possible. I did acquire a level over the weekend, and will stick some images in at the end so you can judge for yourself how well I did.

First shelf support.

First shelf

I'm available all summer to remodel your closet, at a nominal rate.