Coat Closet Progress

A long, long time ago there was this couple who decided they were going to renovate their underutilized kitchen coat closet to make it more useful for them.  They demoed it, installed bead board along the walls, and painted the closet walls and trim, before they got sidetracked with their wedding craziness.  The poor closet was never to be worked on again.  Well, until recently, when they decided they needed to finish this project once and for all.  Story sound familiar?  Yeah, that’s the story of Colby and I and our sad coat closet.  Here’s where we left off:

The poor closet was missing its baseboard, a shelf for above the coat rod, and doors.  The baseboard installation part was easy.

Colby just slapped on some 1″ x 4″ pine, nailing it to the wall behind using his nail gun.

With the baseboard installed, the next step to finish the kitchen closet was to install some shelf brackets and a shelf.  Our original plan was to build some wooden shelf brackets, but we had a pair of brackets that I had picked up at a flea market nearly two years ago and still had yet to use them.  Why not use them in the kitchen closet?

Since there were only two of the brackets and they would be located near the middle of the closet shelf, Colby added some end support for the shelf by nailing on a piece of pine at each end of the closet.  He also notched out the corner trim pieces using his multi-tool so the shelf would fit snuggly into it.

With the end pieces installed, Colby tested out the levelness and also screwed the brackets into the wall.

Here’s a view of the whole shelf support system from above, which gives you a better view of how the end supports work.

And here’s a view of the shelf once it was added on top of the brackets.

I was a little nervous that the brackets and the shelf would be blocked by the coat rod, and you wouldn’t get to see the gloriousness that is those old, cast iron shelf brackets.  But they’re total stars…pun TOTALLY intended.

Of course, me being me, I absolutely had to test out a basket on the shelf.  My hands are itching to get organizing in here!  I don’t have baskets yet for the shelf, I’m still shopping for those, so I grabbed one of the DVD storage baskets from our living room and tested it out in the closet.

The game plan is to use baskets on the shelf to store things like hats and mittens.  I’m thinking one basket for Colby, one for me and maybe one for miscellaneous closet type stuff that doesn’t really belong anywhere else in our house.  You know…like an umbrella and flashlights.

Now that the baseboard and the closet shelf is installed, it was time for closet doors.

We had originally picked up a pair of interior doors to use as french style doors for the closet, but once we found the kitchen buffet at a yard sale and brought it into the house, we found that the buffet blocked the pair of doors from opening.  Doh!  So a couple weekends ago we came across some bifold doors at a local lumber yard on super clearance for $25.  Score!  Of course we brought them home since they would fit our door opening and were compact enough to open without bumping into the buffet.

Installation of the doors was relatively easy.  Well, easy for me since I didn’t do it, Colby did.  After a great deal of measuring, since nothing is square or level in our house including our kitchen closet, Colby determined that the doors needed to be shaved down a little.  So he cut them down a little, actually at an angle since the closet opening is different on each side, and then reblocked the door.  These doors are hollow core doors so reblocking them added extra support and makes the door appear solid.

Then Colby installed the door track on the upper jam.

And slid the doors into it.

Easy as that.  Welcome home kitchen closet doors.

It wasn’t too terribly difficult and took a morning of work to install the baseboard, shelf, and doors.  The hardest part was figuring out the angle to shave the doors so that they would appear level and even once installed, even though the door opening isn’t even close to level or even.

Now that Colby’s job is done, he’s the heavy lifting kind of guy, it’s my turn to swoop in and do all the finish work.  Next up…priming and painting the baseboard, staining and polying the closet shelf, painting the bi-fold doors, installing new door hardware, and FINALLY organizing and creating a storage system for inside the closet.  That’s my favorite part!  We’ve never had an organized and usable closet so I’m anxious to get all the finish work done and get to the organizing part.

Pssst…I’ve got lots of fun stuff coming at you this week including a wedding video, a Boston excursion, and some serious shopping at a few new-to-me places.  Stay tuned!  But enough about me, what were you all up to this weekend?!  Do tell!  Do tell!