Seth and I have done a lot since we’ve been together, planning our wedding (which was very much DIY), he finished grad school while working full time, and now we’re working on overhauling a house. But even after all that, the real test is whether we can handle sharing a closet ☺.  I haven’t shared a closet since I was 12 so honestly the thought was a bit daunting. Our new bedroom has a reach in, one day I hope to have a walk in, but until then I will have the largest and most organized reach in closet possible.  It’s ten feet wide and a little less than two feet deep, I think we’ll be covered for space. So it’s really about what we need inside the closet.

But first things first, of course the existing closet in our bedroom was hilariously awful. The closet that was original to the house was still intact, but rather than tear it down, someone built a second closet around it. So it was kind of his and hers closets, but very haphazard. The best decision was to rip that all out and start fresh, so that’s just what we did. Demolishing the closet did add some extra work, like patching the holes in the floor where the framing stood (from Floors Part 1). Also once the closet was down, you could see that our bedroom and my sewing room used to be two rooms with a pass through, a pass through that was closed off without even removing the door frame. So we had to open up the wall and drywall it properly, now you can’t even tell it was ever two rooms. Also can I just say how tempting it was to just leave it open and build a large master suite, but sadly going down to two bedrooms is just impractical for so many reasons.

Once the wall was properly closed my sister could do the framing for our new bigger and better closet. She did the framing, started the drywall and I finished, mudding is practically my new hobby. Trim was installed around the door frame, it looked very sad without it. We chose a trim that matched the style for all the other doors and windows to keep the upstairs consistent.

Now for the important part, choosing a closet system. There are many choices to consider, so it came down to budget, ability to customize, and ease of installation. The first step of designing a great closet is evaluating one’s wardrobe. As anyone in my life knows, I pretty much live in dresses, I own three pairs of pants outside of pajamas and workout clothes. Seth is a jean and button down kind of guy for the most part. So we need lots and lots of hanging of multiple lengths. I looked at Ikea, California Closets, the Container Store, but the one we went with was Easy Track. I had actually never heard of it, but I loved how easy it was and the price was reasonable. You just enter the dimensions and then is gives you a proposed design you can adjust to your needs. After settling on a design it gives you a shopping list and poof closet! Well not exactly poof, but practically. I realize I may sound like an advertisement, but the name does not lie. It was super easy to install; it only took a couple hours.

The last step…closet doors. So of this whole process the doors were the only step that worried me, we decided to do two tri-fold doors. After trying to find the hardware for a tri-fold door, I learned they are quite uncommon, so we were really just going to have to make do with buying the bi-fold hardware kit with some extras. We picked out super tall doors (90 inches), we then had to trim them down about an inch and a half to fit and paint them the proper color. Sometimes I wish everyone could just come to an agreement on one universal shade of white, it would make life a lot easier. This idea was kind of a stretch, and after a giving it a solid attempt, called it quits. If there is one this we have learned over the past year and a half it’s when to let go and move in a different direction. We did manage to get one half of the doors installed, but not only did it feel very flimsy, but they honestly just looked horrible. On to plan B, sliding doors.

I’m not the biggest fan of sliding doors, but with the large opening of our closet and sticking withing the budget, it turned out to be the best option. We found sliding doors online that would work, but we would have to alter the size of the closet opening to fit the track size. It was a bit sad to tear out something we just built, but it had to be done. The opening is still pretty big, it actually ended up looking better at the end.

We managed to do it all in 4 days. Friday we demolished the front of the closet, always the easiest part. Saturday we rebuilt the framing, this was not fun. We were using steel framing, which is great but much more labor intensive. Sunday we installed the drywall and did the mud. Monday we installed trim and painted. Done! Well sort of, we ordered our doors and and are awaiting their arrival. Per the online instructions they should be really easy to install, but we’ll see.

We may not have doors, but we’ve been using the closet. I can’t express how exiting it is to have my clothes in one place rather than running up and down between two floors to try and find things. Yay organization!