Reworking the Boys’ Closets

The closets in this house were installed, but definitely not designed. The shelving in the boys closets was terrible making already small closets virtually useless. We reworked ours about four years ago, and now I am tackling the boys’ closets.

First, I removed the old wire shelving.

Everything for the old shelving was put into the drywall instead of the studs, so the drywall got messed up in the removal process. In order to get the walls prepped for patching and painting, I took the ball end of a ball-peen hammer and placed it in the hole where the hardware was removed and I hit it with another hammer to push everything back and to give me a place to put spackle. Once I did this in both closets, I patched all the holes with spackle. (I used the kind that is pink when it is wet and dries to white.) When all the patches were dry, I used a sanding block and 80 grit sandpaper to sand everything. I spackled again and sanded it again when it was dry.

I vacuumed everything thoroughly and wiped the walls with a dry terry towel. Then I painted the walls and ceiling with a bright white satin water based paint. It took two coats in the corners to cover the crappy paint that they used. But it’s all fresh and clean now.

Next, I had to install the headers for the shelving system. I used a level to create a line at 84″ from the floor. I first marked the height about every 16″ and then I used a level to connect all my marks. It’s really faint.

Then I used a stud finder to find all the studs in the closet and marked those on my line. Then I lined up the holes in the header with the marks for the studs and marked the holes so I could pre-drill the holes. I reconfirmed the stud locations and then drilled the holes. Then I attached the headers to the wall.

Then I put the standards on the header and lined them up with the studs, made sure that they were hanging plumb, and then marked the screw holes. I moved the standards out of the way and pre-drilled the holes. Then I put the standards back in place and attached them to the wall. Then I added the shelves and rods. This was honestly the quickest part.

One closet took me about two hours from start to finish. I expect the second one to go much faster.

Here’s the finished closet.

The closets I was working on are nearly 8′ wide and I used this Closetmaid kit that I bought at Home Depot.

Now on to the next closet!