Installing bedroom closets — California Cottage

Feb 8

Feb 8 Installing bedroom closets

Closets sound boring until you go five months without one. I imagined it would take a week to set up a bedroom closet, so I didn't start the process until after we'd moved in. In reality, it took 60 days (eight and a half weeks) to plan, order, and install our simple closets from The Container Store.

What we started with

The previous owners left old, yellowed shelving in the bedroom closets, but our contractor removed the shelving when working on the bathroom plumbing. (We didn't want it, anyway; it was greasy and didn't match our storage needs.)

When we moved in to the new house, the closets were bare --- no shelves, and no rods. Without a place to put our clothes or baby toys, boxes piled up around the house. Making things worse, the boxes were all labeled incorrectly. We used the same boxes for three moves in four months, and each move added more confusing labels to the boxes.

Mark's boxes

My boxes

The process

We ordered shelves from The Container Store with help from one of their organizers. The initial estimate was "a week or two," and it ended up taking eight and a half weeks from the first phone call to installation. The timeline:

Day 0: I request in-home consultation
Day 6: Consultation meeting
Day 17: Received first draft of closet plan
Day 38: Received revised draft of closet plan
Day 40: Order placed
Day 59: Closets arrived
Day 60: Closets installed

It almost took even longer due to their scheduling mistake! Luckily, they were able to get a team from San Jose to come at the last minute to do the installation anyway.

As an added "bonus," they over-charged me by $4,000. Yes, you read that right --- $4,000! Someone repeatedly charged us for the closets, over and over again. I noticed within a few days, but as you can imagine I wasn't pleased by this mix-up.

If I were to do this again, I would spend a weekend installing closets myself. I'd go to Lowe's or Home Depot, purchase a similar modular system, and follow the fairly simple installation instructions. It would save me the hassle of waiting and ensure I am not grossly over-charged.

The final product

Even though it took a long time to arrive, I am very happy with the finished product. The shelving is sturdy, we can move things around as needed, and it looks decent. I didn't want to splurge on a high-end custom closet, so I'm glad that these (eventually) worked out.

My half of the closet

This is my half of our shared closet. We both prefer folding our clothes over hanging them, so the closet has lots of shelves and drawers.

Master bedroom close-up

I like to keep things organized, so I like all the different sections.

Nursery closet

Babies don't need a lot of hanging space, so this closet is almost entirely drawers and shelves. We kept some "hanging" space to hold larger objects now (like our air purifiers); later, we can hang grade school clothing there.

Nursery closet

This closet is much larger than it looks, with recessed sections to the left and right of the door. We could have set it up as a small walk-in, but we preferred to use all of the space for storage.

Shallow drawers

The Container Store offers shallow little drawers that are perfect for bibs, pacifiers, and socks.

Closet doors

In a related upgrade, we replaced the closet doors. The house originally had plantation-style doors in the master bedroom and paneled closet doors in the nursery. Neither style matched the rest of the house, and we didn't feel bad replacing them because they weren't original.

(Before) Master bedroom

(Before) Nursery

The new doors are shaker-style, to match the original doors and built-ins that remain in the house. We added contemporary glass knobs with a hint of brass.