In this post, I continue from emptying my dresser in the last Clothing Organization post to my closet transformation. There really was no decluttering this time, just organization and painting. Everything that was in the closet after I emptied the dresser in the previous post was in the closet after this organization as well.
I scoured the internet looking for the right system for this half-blind reach-in 1950s closet with ZERO lighting. In the meantime, I’d moved a freestanding ClosetMaid system around to test out the possibility of making one side less accessible to add drawers as well as if I could fit everything into drawers.
I had played around with Elfa shelving design space by myself, which was limiting. I highly recommend letting the people in the store create the design as they have more options like creating a 6″ break option for me, which is the only way the drawers could clear the doorway and still fit into the closet. The alternate system I was considering was by ClosetMaid but the drawers were very small. My mock-up mimicked this system closer though.
The Planning Phase:
I lived using baskets from around the house to hold my items like drawers for about four months before I committed to a system. This time around I bit the bullet and went with an Elfa system. It had me very nervous. In order to include drawers the system was pushing $1,000 and wouldn’t include the repairs necessary to patch the removal of the old built-in organizing parts. I waited for the September sale, although the Dec-Feb sale is, as of now Jan 2023, the larger sale at 30%.
The price tag on this system and the challenges I incurred during installation really may have made a built-in the more appropriate solution but I still wasn’t sure I could utilize my shoe storage with only 6″ of clearance in front of the shelves and a blind wall in front. Visibility wasn’t great and clearance wasn’t great. However, this was nearly the only option that would allow me to keep everything in my closet.
The shelves could be moved up on the top half if I buy two half-hanging bars and then the hanging sections would be diagonal from each other. I started with the hanging section being the entire top section with only one shelf above.
The other thing that I’m still looking to find is a good hanging option for my laundry. The current laundry hamper is too wide to fit amongst the Elfa system. I’m considering something like this bag on a hanger.
Preparation:
I moved my clothing into bins and drawers temporarily while I began the disassembly of my closet. I’d purchased the Elfa system but had to get the closet prepared for installing a new system. This definitely wasn’t a step I’d considered at the beginning of the project. I had to remove all the old structures (2 shelves and a long rod with two end wood pieces to support it and one that ran the length of the back parallel to the rod). All of this was original and had many layers of paint over it and under.
I had to remove the pieces and sand down the paint runs and edges. Then used joint compound to match the levels and sand that down. All of this was very difficult to do with no light, so thankfully, I’d already selected some magnetic lights on Amazon. I was able to attach them to the hinges or on top of framing pieces or even the floor to get light in the room.
My original plan was to put a fun wallpaper behind the system but wallpaper is crazy expensive, even for that small of a section. Instead, I found a pattern I thought I could recreate for cheap with paint. I misjudged the cost of paint as well. The paint was still cheaper than the wallpaper would have been, but much more expensive than I’d expected. I caught a Sherwin-Williams sale but still spent over $100 on paint and painting supplies.
Painting Patterns:
You can download my DIY instructions for how I recreated the pattern without a template here or if you’d rather buy the template, you can find it on my Pinterest Board All the paints I used are listed in the download DIY instruction. I discovered that the diamond wasn’t perfectly vertical when I taped it, but that the pattern was actually loose enough that it isn’t noticeable at all.
Additionally, if I were to do it again, I wouldn’t try to paint patterns into the partial squares as you can see here, they look bad and don’t really add anything.
Installing the Elfa System:
The, theoretically, nice thing about Elfa is that you can just install the top hook bar and everything else will hang down from there with the proper support. However, even at this stage, I’d hit a snag. The Elfa track is installed with long, nearly 4″ screws, with knotting plastic drywall screws. Since they cut the bar down for me and it had only 1-2″ of horizontal space to move, not a single screw lined up with a stud in that wall. Additionally, I didn’t have the depth available for that screw.
I predrilled the hole to discover something dull was blocking the screw from going all the way in for the entire length of the bar. The back wall is a bedroom and I couldn’t push through that wall, so I went to the hardware store and purchased shorter screws that could still, hopefully, grab and pull the drywall screw into a knot as it was designed to. Since I didn’t have a single stud, I used every hole in the bar to anchor with.
For comparison, my sister also designed an Elfa closet similar to mine at the same time. She accidentally didn’t have the bar cut down, so we were able to deliberately line her holes up to the studs but then had to use metal shop blades to cut it down. The Container Store will cut things down to a size you mark out as well. It helped that she had full access to the backside of her closet to line up. Mine would have been a bit harder but also possible with lots of measuring. She was able to get 3 screws solidly into the studs and did not use the drywall anchors at all. Her house was built in the 1960s and has modern drywall (mine has Rockwall).
From that point on, you’d expect it to be simple but the lack of space in front of my blind side really did make it challenging. The drawers determined the height of the top shelf and side shelves to some degree. However, because I couldn’t get in front of the blind side I was installing and uninstalling pieces a lot to get it all to line up.
Modifications for Closet Transformation:
I decided the hanging bar was too high and bought a shorter drawer in order to bring that bar down lower. Since I’m tall having it up high is not so uncomfortable, but the other issue was with only 6″ in front of the top shelf, it was challenging to get things down from the new top shelf.
I had to modify my off-season/off-size bin to two shorter bins, which I had on hand. Then I went ahead and bought a side shelf hanger to take advantage of that 6″ of space beside the drawers. This space would be used for the lost hat hanging space as well as my laundry basket.
My sister had an extra hook for the verticals as well that I borrowed and haven’t figured out exactly where I want it or what I want to put on it. Currently, only half the hanging space is being used.
Finished Closet Transformation:
It’s a bit easy to get caught up in the advertised ease of a product and forget that there are steps before installing a new organizing system. This would have been a real pain if I hadn’t already decluttered and still had the dresser to move things back to temporarily.
Painting the back wall was fun, and I’m very glad I did it. When I added all the facia, which I love, I lost another critical half to 1 inch to help get things off of the top shelf. This may force me to take down that facia, but for now, it’s only the suitcase that needs it removed. The suitcase is leaving marks everywhere.
The track has held up over several months of light use and the lights from Amazon keep light well enough to function for several weeks before needing to be recharged. I appreciate the motion-sensing aspect as well.
Also, the color choices turned out great. When I first put up that dark gray paint it was honestly looking like I’d smeared poop on the walls. I don’t know why it looked brown in that bad lighting until it fully dried, but thank goodness it looks correct now!
I really did struggle with the decision to spend that much money on a closet system, but there really wasn’t anything out there that could do what I wanted exactly but cheaper. If you can wait for a sale, I highly recommend you do so, but go ahead and plan as soon as you’ve decluttered. Then mock it up and see what other things you didn’t consider.
If you’d like help with your own closet system, I do virtual consultations so just reach out via e-mail or Facebook.
Follow us on Facebook.com/LHLorganizing to see a video introduction to this exact system or on Instagram at Instagram.com/lhl.organizing.
