Adding Closet Storage

2:42 PM

I wanted more storage in our craft room/ office. I saw these shelves on ana-white.com she added to her daughter's closet and was excited to make my own.

Here are the plans.

You adjust the dimensions according to your own doors.

The best part is having the doors swing open with the hinges on each side.

This is the "before" shot. The closet was a sliding door, which slid into the corner. So the door to the room had to be closed and it was just a pain to get anything squished in the corner. What I hate about the sliding folding doors, is the fact they don't slide all the way, so it seems like you only ever get them open 75%.

But now I have added storage on the back of the doors, and they open so I can access the rest of the closet a lot easier.

I was really glad to have a place for wrapping paper, the huge roll of freezer paper, and a few thin bolts of interfacing that always seem to be in the way.

I customized the shelves for my needs obviously, adding the 3 ribbon dowels. I just bought a 3/8" dowel for less than a $1.00 and drilled the holes on each side for all the ribbon.

The rest of the shelves hold all the craft supplies in a way I can see the better, as before they were all mixed in drawers.

All these plastic drawers held all my supplies and junk. Now they are sorted in colors to hold all my scraps. I actually use the scraps quite often, and before they were all in grocery bags all over the closet. It's nice now to just open the blue scrap drawer to find a piece I need.

SOME VARIATIONS FROM THE PLAN

if you're interested

MDF: I actually saved money by buying the huge 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" thick MDF rather than buying all the pine 1x6 boards as listed in the plan. I had the guy at Home Depot cut the sheet into 6" tall strips. So I ended up with 8 strips 6" tall and 8 feet long. I only used 4 strips for these shelves, and have plans for the rest.

So rather than the $40.00 for pine boards, I used half of a $35.00 MDF sheet, so this project for the wood only cost $17.50 instead.

It was also easier in the end, because I really didn't need to sand the MDF much at all, where pine boards need to be sanded and primed to seal the sap that can leak out from the knots in the wood. So I skipped the primer and just painted the 2 coats of white.

ANCHORING TO HOLLOW DOORS: In a comment on the plans, there was a link to using the plastic sheet rock anchors for hollow doors. But I read more on that, and everything recommended "molly bolts" to anchor for hollow doors.

Here's a link that explains how they work and how to install them (just scroll down to molly bolts) I bought the shortest molly bolts, and they seem to be awesome for hollow doors. A package of 5 was only $2.11 at Home Depot, mixed in with all the other anchors in the hardware section.

About 1.5" along the edges on my doors were actually solid and not hollow, so I could use screws to secure the one side and bottoms of the shelves to the door. The rest of the anchoring used the molly bolts.

I am loving the new the closet storage and doors that open rather than slide!

Thanks to the genius mind of Ana White for the awesome idea and easy to follow plan.