Converting a child’s closet to built-in shelves
When faced with a mess, it’s often our instinct to conceal with storage bins or doors. But in the case of our son’s closet, the answer was actually to remove the doors completely.
While it wasn’t a wreck of hidden dirty laundry and broken toys — like his sister’s closet — his closet did have some serious issues:
- He had way more hanging-up space than he needed for his 10-15 button-up shirts
- He couldn’t even reach the hanging bar (Don’t you love when kids yank on the bottom of a shirt until it pops off the hanger?)
- The single (too-high) shelf was heaped with bins of clothing and books nobody could reach
- The side shelves were a useless mess of more books
His dresser needed to be in the middle of the closet in order for the drawers to open without hitting the closet doors, leaving dead space on either side (and black holes for random items of clothing).
So one Saturday morning, I tore every single thing out of his closet until I was staring at white walls, a hanging bar, a too-high shelf and two random MDF shelves jutting out of one side.
I stood there and looked at the closet for a long time, trying to figure out what was going to work for it.
The answer, I decided, was to take off the bi-fold doors and transform it from a closet into more of a built-in nook …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
2 Comments on “Converting a child’s closet to built-in shelves”
So what do you think?
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Heather's Handmade Life 
Great idea! Love the way it looks and how it can hold so much.
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so much more functional! You have the best ideas.
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