Custom Closet Build for kids closet

We recently moved to a new house and strangely there was no infrastructure in any of the closets. This ended up being a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because I could do anything that I wanted with the closets and not feel guilty about taking out the previous persons choices but it was also a curse because it was a problem that we needed to fix quickly. 

For a temporary band aid we just hung a simple bar from one end to the other to be able to hang clothes while we got moved in and I decided what we ultimately wanted to do. 

The before- the band aid fix 

We are hoping to stay in the house for a long time- quite possibly our forever home. With that in mind I am trying to think about every decision I make as a long term decision. How will this get used now and in the future? 

So for my toddler's closet I liked the idea of having a closet that grows with him. I also liked the idea of having drawers in the closet. Also we knew that at some point our two kids would share this room and so we wanted to make something that would be easy for them to share. 

I looked into a few different closet systems but they are all pretty expensive. IKEA has the PAX system which is the most affordable but still pretty pricey- especially for particle board- or at least in my opinion. We considered custom building drawers but then we found the "RAST" at IKEA which is just a basic pine three drawer dresser. Basically by the time we bought the wood and the drawer slides we would've spent more than buying the RAST. So we just went to IKEA and bought those dressers instead, with the intention of painting them.  

The Ikea RAST dressers 

With the length of the closet we had about a foot in between the dressers that I wanted to turn into shelving. I wanted a specific shelf to hide a laundry hamper and then I wanted a few shelves for toys/books etc. When he is older they are versatile so he can store other things. I also wanted two larger shelves on top for longer term storage (clothes, bedding etc). We have 10ft ceilings in our house so we might as well take advantage of them for storage.  We used plywood boards and cut everything to custom size. 

The boards cuts and sanded that would eventually make up the shelves 

After everything was cut and measured we painted it white. This was something I went back and forth on. His room is currently green and I considered painting it all a darker green to compliment his room. But then I thought about what if he wants to paint it a different color- I didn't really want to pain this again and white is clean and goes with everything so we decided to go with white instead. We ended up purchasing a paint sprayer for this project. This is something that I am kicking myself that we didn't do a while ago because it was SO NICE! 

First coat of paint with the paint sprayer

Then came the install. We purposely built a 2x4 base for everything to go on because we know that we want to carpet this room in the future. Unfortunately it's just not in the budget right now. But we wanted to be able to open the bottom drawers when the carpet was installed. Then we started assembling it piece by piece. 

Then we wanted to add in the bars for the hanging clothes. When I designed this closet I purposely measured one of my husbands large shirts so that it can fit in the closet on the top bar. That way if my toddler ends up being as big as my husband his shirts will still fit in there. We added a bottom bar about halfway through to maximize clothes storage while he is still little but the bottom bar is removable for when his clothes get too big. The two bars are really nice right now because I can sort by season. 

                                                             

                                                                    The closet with one bar 

One thing I've learned is that if you want something to look custom built in then trim the heck out of it. So thats what we did. We added trim pieces to each shelf to make it look like a built in and to give it an extra polished look. 

And DONE! I am so happy with how this turned out. I think it looks soo good and it can grow with him for years to come! The only thing I will say is I will probably end up replacing the handles on the dresser drawers because they are already showing discoloration- but thats a pretty minor fix. Overall I think it's great!