Making a closet organizer

Transforming a Closet

We have a guest bedroom in our house, but we rarely have guests. Mostly, the room is used as my wife’s crafts room and the “guest” parts are in the way.

The room’s closet has been a hodge-podge of junk for years: one of those spaces to toss items you rarely, if ever, need and close the door. There wasn’t even any room for hanging clothes if guests did want to use it!

This week, we gutted the closet: removed all the junk in it, the doors and even the clothes rod. My wife painted the inside and incredibly bright shade of pink and asked me if I could make some storage shelves for her yarn, sewing supplies, and other crafty stuff. It’s surprising how much bigger the room feels without those sliding doors. It’s almost like a cozy little alcove.

Making a Shelving System

I made the shelves to fit the space by creating 9″ deep shelves in the back: big enough for skeins of yarn as well as knitting pattern books. The two side shelving units have adjustable shelves that are 4″ deep, perfect for various crafting accessories.

I made it all out of melamine, which gives it a clean, contemporary look plus it’s inexpensive. One 4′ x 8′ sheet is only $34. Another plus is that it saves you from having to paint or finish it. On the downside, melamine is very heavy. The only way to work with it is to rough-cut it into smaller pieces that you can cut to size on the table saw. Another drawback is that the thin, white laminate can be a little fussy. Use a fine-tooth blade to cut it and avoid chipping it. The 3/4″ router bit I used to make dados wasn’t very sharp and I ended up with a few chipped areas. Luckily, I was able to hid most of these on the back sides that aren’t visible.

I don’t have plans for this project, since all closets will be different sizes, but here is my SketchUp file in case you would like to play around with it to suit your needs.