Finally I moved in to my new house, albeit the renovation is not totally finished. It just marks the beginning of many DIY home improvement projects. The first project is building the closets. The closets came with the house is those very ugly wire shelves, which typically you would see in a rental apartment. Both I and Pat hated those flimsy wire shelves and want to have better looking closets. Custom made closet are nice but very expensive, so it’s out of question. We check out closet solutions from IKEA, they look nice but they are quite expensive and the dimension does not fit our walk in closet. I almost got the extensible closet from Canadian Tire, but at the end I go for modular closet from Home Depot for the walk in closet and build from parts for other smaller closets.
I bought the Martha Stuart modular closet from Home Depot, although it carries Martha Stuart’s brand, I suspect it’s a Home Depot brand, since I don’t see it selling anywhere else. It is about twice as expensive as Closet Maid wire shelves but half the price of Ikea and it almost quite nice. The closet is easy to install, first mount the metal rail on the wall, then hang the vertical plywood panels and at last put on the shelves and rods. It only took me 12 hours to finish our walk in closet. I have spent most of the time figuring out where to drill holes on the dry wall using a stud finder and a level, went to Home Depot twice to pick up parts I forgot to buy, reinstall the panels a few times due to stupid mistakes and saw down the hanging rod to fit my smaller than standard closet. It also has many accessories, like drawers, wire basket, L shape shelves for the corners, shoe racks, sliding ties rack. I bought a couple of drawers and a tie racks to make the closet looks more elegant.
Here is how the Martha Stuart closet looks on the package:
Here is how the Martha Stuart closet looks after installed
The walk in closet is done and I have a more ambitious plan for other smaller closets. The other closets are essentially just a shelf with a hanging rod, I figure the cheapest solution is build it from parts. I got two metal bracket with hooks at the end for the rod at $3.99 each. Don’t buy the packaged shelves or rods from Closet Maid as they are over priced. Just buy a long piece of laminated plywood shelves for $10 and have Home Depot cut it into the right size for $1 per cut. A 4 feet 1″ dowel hardwood rob for $5 and cut it into the right size as well. The rest is pretty straight forward, find the stud and screw into the bracket. Then put the shelves and rod on the bracket and fix it with screws too. The trick is drill a pilot hole first so it is easier drive the screw into the wood. The only thing left to do is paint the rod to match color of the shelf.
