Existing Closet Wall

Closet Elevation w/ Clothing Locations shown

Second Floor Plan

Alternate Closet Layout that keeps the door in its current location

The Closet Units:

Trying to determine the best way to fit closets into our bedroom has been difficult. I think I’ve done about 8 options all together over the last year. I pretty quickly decided that we should use the Ikea PAX system as the basis for our system. Not only are these relatively inexpensive, but they offer a LOT of options for shelves, drawers and boxes. We should be able to maximize the interior space of these units with the accessories that are designed to fit perfectly into the spaces. We considered custom doors, but in the end decided to use the PAX standard 20″ wide doors, which means using the 20″ and 40″ wide units. These units come in 2 depths and 2 heights. Because we have tall ceilings we could use the taller height, and still have space left over.

We will be using both available depths for the closets. The deeper units will be on either side for hanging clothes. The shallower units will be in the middle for folded clothes. We have gone bath and forth about which depth to use for the middle units. In the end I don’t want to lose the extra 10″ of depth in the bedroom. I am hoping with the double stacked hanging rods in the side units that we will be in good shape with hanging space. We currently fold a lot of our clothes, but I think we will able to hang more of our pants in the new scheme.

Similar Base Condition in Living Room

The Base:

To maximize the usable height and create more of a built in look we are going to sit the IKEA closets on a base. The base will be made of 2x8s and we will try and reuse the existing wood base for the face. So as not to waste any potential storage, we plan on making hidden drawers in the bottom. I haven’t designed all of the details for this yet and part of this will probably be decided once we finish demo and determine the floor condition. We will either use heavy duty drawer tracks or casters on the bottom (with slots to keep them straight). I will probably also add some handles (so they won’t look completely hidden). We installed a similar base detail (without the drawers) in the Living Room.

The Side Units:

On either side of the main closet units we have some left over space. So as not to loose any potential storage, we are planning on making custom boxes for these locations. These will be made out of MDF sheets. Since we don’t currently have access to a table saw, I will draw out the cuts on a 4×8 sheet and send it over to the lumber yard. Most good lumber yards will cut down the sheets to specific dimensions for a reasonable price. This makes transporting the pieces much easier and makes my install quicker. We will paint the mdf white to match the rest of the system (ideally before assembly). I have considered adding doors to these, but given how narrow they are I don’t think it is worth it. I could always add some later if they it looks out of place. I would make those out of 1/2″ mdf as well.

Similar Crown Molding in Living Room

The Crown Molding:

For the top I think we are going to fill the leftover space with painted mdf and install crown molding. I am leaning towards replacing all of the crown molding in the room (since we will be adding new drywall to the ceiling) and it will all need to be removed. Then we can use something similar to the crown molding in the Living Room and Dining Room.  I may reuse the crown molding elsewhere in the house.

To see Part 1: For Our Bedroom Part 1: The Goals

Our Current Bedroom

MS Paint Swatches

House Industries Letters

Happy Summer Print

I don’t know where to start. Our bedroom is in need of some love and a LOT of storage. I originally had planned on doing more work on the room a few years back when I was pregnant with Sam. Unfortunately, I ended up on bedrest the same day we picked up our bed from the store. Then I had to stare at the purple walls for several weeks straight. Ever since, I have been dreaming of the day when we could redo our bedroom to make it more suitable and pleasant to spend time in. Until now our room hasn’t been a big priority, kids spaces have definitely taken precedence, but we have hit the tipping point. I dream of a restful place with a beautiful closet with a place for everything. Hopefully we can this project finished by sometime this fall! This is the first “big” project we have undertaken in a while. We will have to see if we are up to the challenge of doing a good bit of the work ourselves.

The Issues:

Clothing Storage:

For some reason Victorians didn’t seem to need a lot of clothing storage, particularly any requiring a regular length hanger.  Currently the only closet in the room is super shallow, only fitting  a regular hanger where the door is located. There is a niche behind the door that we have installed a rack on for Drew’s shirts and put a hamper below. We have been muddling along (and using the kids closets). Well I think the time has come to deal with this!

The Purple Walls:

I painted the purple walls 10 years ago (to replace horrible wallpaper that use to make me dizzy) and we are in desperate need of a new color. I think we have decided on a new light gray color (after having a dark gray sample on the wall for the past 4 years).

The Plaster Walls:

We have the original plaster walls in most of the house. The condition of these walls varies dramatically. The cracks in the walls between the hallway and bedroom are horrible, and the plaster needs to come out. Also the ceiling needs to be covered in drywall (lots of spider cracks).

Lighting:

There are no hardwired lights (or fans) in our room and the overhead light in the hallway is actually run from a wall sconce outlet. This needs to be fixed! Aesthetically I am not usually in favor of ceiling fans, but fortunately there are some more attractive ones out there now. And I dream of having one on a warm night in our house. Eventually I would like to add them to all of the bedrooms in the house.

Furniture:

We have too much of it! This is partially because we are trying to house all of our clothes, but it is really out of hand. Some of it has to go!

My magazine pile (I know I have a problem!) & The kids books

Clutter:

The clutter, not sure what I have to say except it is a major problem. It is a mix of clothes, laundry baskets, toys and magazines. I am not sure how to deal with it. Hopefully we can find space for some of the stuff in the magical closet wall.

Light:

We need more ambient light for general use but we also need to be able to block out the outside light better. A light on the future ceiling fan should help along with some blackout curtains for the windows.

Ikea PAX Closet System with Bergsbo Doors

The Wishlist:

-Giant walk in closet (just kidding!)
-Ikea PAX closets (they have relatively nice white doors and have all sorts of exciting accessories)
-Light Gray Walls & White Trim
-Less Furniture
-Hang Giant Metal Panels behind bed (from BEST showroom and sitting in garage)
-Pretty Ceiling Fan & Light
-Floor to Ceiling Room darkening curtains (on either side of the windows to avoid the radiator)

Things that Stay:

-Queen Size Leather Platform Bed (Very comfy for reading)
-Comfy memory foam mattress
-Bedside tables (designed by BluDot for Target a long time ago)
-Matching pair of white dressers from Crate and Barrel
-Flatscreen TV & cable box (in an ideal world we could live without these, but in reality this is where we watch most of our TV after the kids have gone to bed)
-Artwork (reframed)

Things that Go:

-TV Armoire to be relocated to the basement for future exercise room (Sorry Mom!)
-2 matching ikea shelving units w/glass doors (not sure where these are going to go, possibly Craig’s List)
-Too short curtains and cheap curtain rods
-Clutter (hmmm…. not sure exactly how I am going to deal with my magazine piles)
-Old Clothes (time for a major reduction in clothing). I think it might also be time for seasonal clothing to be stored on the third floor.

Required Construction Work (the down and dirty list):

The work will be done partially by a contractor and partially by us. I need to get a quote for the contractor portion (and decide where we are going to sleep while this happens).

-Shift entry door by 6″ to allow for full depth closet (VERY CAREFULLY since this is a load bearing wall)
-Demo existing closet (YUCK!)
-Demo plaster on walls near door (severely cracked)
-Remove baseboard at closet areas (salvage if possible)
-Remove crown molding (possibly reuse although not original)
-Remove chair molding (not original , pointless and made of cheap looking pine)
-Fix wood floor in hall/bedroom threshold (we have a supply of salvaged wood floor in the garage)
-Add furred out wall on bathroom wall to allow for a pocket door into the bathroom (I have to see how my contractor feels about this)
-Install new electric for ceiling fan/light fixture
-Install drywall on corridor walls (where cracked plaster was removed) including chamfer detail at outside corner
-Install 1/4″ drywall on ceiling (in both bedroom and hall)
-Install 3/8″ or 1/2″ plywood behind future closets
-Install baseboard below future closet areas w/ blocking to allow for large pullouts for shoes
-Install Ikea PAX system above baseboards and blocking
-Install filler pieces/shelves in areas where PAX system doesn’t fit
-Install crown molding on PAX
-Install crown molding in bedroom and hallway
-Paint walls, ceiling and trim (including pine window and door trim).

BEST Showroom by Venturi & Rauch. We have 4 panels from this fascade

The Fun Stuff:

-Install metal panels behind bed with french cleats (cut 2×4). These are off of The BEST Showroom and have been sitting in our garage for the past 5 years or so. There are 4 that make a pattern. More on this later!
-Choose ceiling fan and light fixture.
-Choose ceiling light for the hallway.
-Choose fabric for the curtains.
-Reframe some of our existing artwork in simple black (or maybe white) frames.
-Frame a wedding picture (since our 10th anniversary is coming up I thought this would be nice).
-Pick out accessories for new closet!
-Get a restful night sleep!

Next Steps:

-Confirm Ikea PAX Closet Sizes (they were redoing their offerings a couple of months ago)
-Finalize Drawings in AutoCAD.
-Meet with Contractor