Wire to Wow! How to build closets for Kids!

One thing I know for sure is that I can’t stand wire shelving. It’s one of the first things I start ripping out of all the homes I have moved in to. Wire shelves just don’t provide very much usable storage. Sure you can hang tons clothes on them but what else are they good for? Nothing, that’s what.

Look at all this fabulous unused space. There is only one usable wall in this closest. The one on the left. The one on the right has a door leading to our walk in attic. When we first moved in there was also a shoe wire rack that ran the length of the floor. I ripped that sucker out as soon as we moved in. You can see the holes in the picture below.

My plan for this wall was to create a built in closet system that could hold a lot of toys, clothes and books. Whenever I customize kids closets I keep a few things in mind.

• will child size hangers and larger hangers fit in the closet space
• will the shelving and/or storage work for an adult or teenager in the future
• am I maximizing the space to the best of my ability

From Wire to Wow! How to build closets for Kids!

Jude’s room is pretty much finished, however we have one more piece of business to finish. The closet. It’s so tempting to leave it unfinished but even the smallest closet always holds such amazing potential. In order to customize Jude’s closet I decided to look for some laminate shelving and then finish them off. I bought two of these Closet Maid cubicles from Target. Unfortunately, only one fit. Nothing else that was pre-built would fit in the left over space. I was left with one option, build it myself. But first I needed to remove the  baseboard. And I was am so excited to tell you about this because I bought a new tool to do this fun little job.

This tool is called an Oscillator for those of you that haven’t heard of one. It is an amazing power tool and one of those non-intimidating ones for those of you that are just now starting to use them like I am. For so many years I’ve been using a hand saw, seriously the Amish would love me. The Oscillator is excellent for cutting into the center of baseboards. I also used it for chopping off the top of stubborn screws which I had unfortunately stripped. Go Me!!!

At this point the closet has been painted, the baseboard in the back has been removed and the shelf assembled. My next step was to custom build a small shelf to fill up the empty space. It’s really not that hard to build small shelves. Trust me.

Here’s a look of the Pre-Fab shelf on the Left and my custom build on the right. If you are super lucky you won’t have to custom build. Most times you do have to customize something in a closet.So, if you need to, go to the closet section of Lowes and there they have long white laminate boards that you can cut to any length you need and build your shelves to fit.  

The last step after you get the shelves installed is t0 start chalking. Get a lot of caulk, I recommend two types. Adhesive clear caulk and white caulk  First I used the adhesive caulk to get the shelves to stick to the wall.

After that dried, I went through and chalked with white caulk. For small areas, I used the chalk in the tube. For large gaps, I used the caulk  in the caulk “gun”.  It’s amazing what caulk can do. This area above was really pitiful looking. A little caulk and sanding plus a little paint made it looked amazing.

Here are the shelves set into the walls. The right hand shelves are the ones I built myself. I built them tall so we could store tall children’s books, my biggest pet peeve is when large books can’t fit on shelves. I also thought that if in the future if a teenage girl moved in or a young adult these cubbies would be great for tall boots. They can also be made into squares by adding another shelf as well. Lastly, I hung the clothing bar across making sure both small and large hangers would fit.

Come and see the Big REVEAL From Wire to WOW  Kid’s Closet Reveal