I MOVED OUT! Ok, ok. Not out of the house. I moved out of the walk in closet. Well just about. It’s a process people. But I did get an upgrade in closet space and today I’m revealing my DIY closet room makeover with a tour, the design layout, what we used and why exactly we did it.
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Do most people need a closet room? Absolutely not. Give a girl a walk in closet and in most cases she’s content (as long as she doesn’t have to share haha). However, with the nature of what I do for a living I have a lot of clothes and shoes and honestly it has just taken over the house. It was leaving me feeling overwhelmed, unorganized and I just didn’t have a functional system that was working for me.
Last year Erik and I had ordered the PAX system from Ikea for my home office and while aesthetically it looks great I personally didn’t feel it was fully functional for what I needed. Yes, it looked great in photos. However, I needed more storage and better use of my space. We first looked into getting a larger PAX system, but it cost almost $3K. Ikea is also super behind on shipping. So we decided to do a DIY closet room and began designing the layout in one of our spare bedrooms.
I knew I wanted to utilize every single inch of the spare room into being 100% functional. My main requests were tons of storage for shoes, bags and tons of racks for clothes.
Erik found these heavy duty industrial clothing racks and designed it so I could have 2 rows of clothes (1 on top and 1 on the bottom) . To make it more pleasing to the eye he added in the long white rack in the middle to hold bags, baskets, etc.
We did 6 racks like that which gave me plenty of room for shirts, tanks, sweatshirts and sweaters. And yes, I spent a crazy amount of money on hangers. After testing every kind of hanger out there over the years I felt wood hangers held my shirts the nicest and I mixed in velvet for non slip items.
On the other side I had requested to have at least 1 long rack to hang dresses, jumpsuits and kimonos. Full disclosure here, the rack did come out of the wall after I hung my dresses! Oh my goodness, ERIK WANTED TO KILL ME! LOL! Being the rod is so long it needed to be drilled into a piece of wood. You can see the distressed wood in the photo above.
Erik also built a shelf that ran above all the racks so I could easily store all my bags on top. Bags are always so hard to store. You shove them in a closet and then you never know what you have. This makes it so much easier to see what I actually have.
The next part of my DIY closet room makeover that was of huge importance was having a ton of shoe storage. Erik went to IKEA and got these long shelves. He measured it out so that the entire wall and part of the wall next to it could be filled with shoes. He also left enough room from the bottom shelf to the floor so that I could display my high boots on the floor come winter. Erik also came up with the corner design so I could display shoes or bags a little differently than the long racks. This also made the transition from the 2 walls flow much more nicely.
As for lighting, I opted for a chandelier rather than recessed lighting only because recessed does not work well in photos for try ons. I wanted the room to have a mix of glam, industrial and antique touches and I think the chandelier pulled it all in so nicely.
Being it’s such a large room I made sure to get a large statement mirror. Initially, I wanted to get the Anthropologie or Arhaus mirror but both were $1500 and not able to ship till late summer. I found this one for 1/2 the price and it was here within a few days. It’s massive so you absolutely need a large space for it. Think it runs about 84 inches high and weighs just about 100 lbs. It’s stunning in person and I have no regrets about not splurging on the more expensive mirrors I had originally wanted. This one is the best look for less in my opinion and just as good of quality.
The last touch to my closet room makeover was having a dresser to store tank tops, leggings, and shorts. I must have looked on every website to find a dresser to fit under the window. Everything was either low quality, outrageously expensive or not the vintage style I was looking for. I ended up finding a local guy on FB marketplace who refinishes furniture. He had this beautiful piece from the 1960s that he had redone. Super reasonable and he delivered. Plenty of room in the drawers and I can easily display all my jewelry right on the dresser.
I put the finishing touches on my DIY closet room makeover but this one really all goes out to Erik. There was absolutely blood, sweat and tears (and some curse words). But all in all he was able to complete the project in a few days. And once we added it all up the cost was so much less than buying more wardrobe systems from IKEA. A ton of items came from Amazon and Wayfair. Plus we were able to customize to how I was going to want it making it that much more functional. The big question we get now is if I really moved out of the walk in closet yet? Almost friends, almost. There’s still bits of pieces of me in there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we are getting there!
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MIRROR | LONG INDUSTRIAL ROD | INDUSTRIAL ROD | INDUSTRIAL ROD | INDUSTRIAL BRACKETS | CHANDELIER | CEILING MEDALLION | RUG | JEWELRY STAND | HEADBAND STAND | BOX OF WOODEN HANGERS
Where did you get the long white rack for the middle of the hanging section?
Also, would you share how much you spent total, minus the mirror and light fixture? Trying to design mine now on a budget and wanting to know what is a realistic budget. Thanks and looks amazing!
Hi! Pretty sure it came from Lowes or Home Depot. I’d say we spent around $1500, give or take. Good luck with doing yours! You’ll love it once it’s done!
I would like to know how long is that back wall? And how long are the side walls you hang clothes on?
Did you have to put them all in studs in the wall?
No. We just used anchors but the long wall we did use a piece of wood on the wall and then drilled into that because it came too loose after I hung too much on it.
Are those the floating shelves from ikea that you have your shoes on? Sorry for all the questions I am making my spare room I to a closet abs this is by far the best one I’ve seen! I love it
No problem and thank you so much. It’s a huge undertaking! Yes they are the ones from IKEA. We looked at others but these had the most room so the shoes wouldn’t hang over the edge.
Hi! What is the. Ame of these shelves?
Hi! They are called Lack floating wall shelf from ikea.
Hi! Love the closet! did your room have a built in closet? If so what did you do with IT?
Hi! Thank you! Yes we the room has a closet with a 2 sliding doors. It’s still part of the room and used for storage (more storage lol).
On the long wall, did you have to drill into a stud or by using the board you just drilled through the board and wall and inserted anchors? This is closet goals!!
Hi what is the name of the chandelier?
What is the dimensions of your room? I am about to take on a room to closet redo. I love your results and am hoping to achieve something similar!! I do not have a professional need for mine, just a love for clothes, shoes and accessories 🙂
Can you please tell me where the long white rack between the clothing racks came from?!