Master Closet

The master bedroom has been occupied several times since I set up the furniture in there. Our daughter and her family moved to Aachen, Germany at the end of May. They emptied their house and rented it so they needed to be out before the big move. They spent the last few days with us and the parents slept in the master bedroom. The kids slept with us and in the guest room. Then my sister visited and she stayed in the room. It was very hot then and she said the room stayed comfortable because of the effective ceiling fan.
But the guests are gone for now, the master bathroom is finished, (mostly) and I wanted to move to the master bedroom. Our current bedroom will be Dave’s office and his desk is already in there. I moved the filing cabinet in there too. We will leave the bed up so that we can also use it as a guest room.
Before we could move though, the closet had to be set up to hold our clothes. So I have been working on that all week.
I knew I wanted shelves on one side and clothes poles on the other. I also put a clothes pole at the back. The front of the closet has a bit of an odd angle, so the shelves had to be cut to fit. I had disassembled all the shelving in the old closets and the entry and saved the particle board shelves. So I had several to choose from to assemble in the master closet.

I also saved the support boards and pole hangers. Plus I had several angle supports left over from the ventilation shaft/light shelves. All the shelves and the support boards got a light sanding and two coats of paint.

The distance between the shelves was figured to hold the baskets that I like to keep my clothes in. I prefer baskets to drawers.
The original support boards had holes drilled for the closet poles. So I used this system again to attach the poles.

On the other side of the closet I had to enclose the vent and electrical connections for the crawl space ventilation fan. The duct was a bit too wide to fit in the 2 x 4 wall. This is an inside wall but the bottom of the wall connects to the crawl space. The other side of this wall is the rear hallway and outside door. That is where the fan vents to.
The space was framed with 2 x 4’s so I cut 8″ wide boards from the salvaged wood rack for the box and tacked them to the inside of the framing with my finish nail gun. Then I topped the sides with another board and attached one to the bottom too. There was a fiberboard panel that was covering some plumbing in the original house and I cut that to size for the cover. It is screwed on so it can be removed if necessary. I also wired an outlet into the electrical connection for the fan. Another outlet might be useful. I found that the circuit that was labeled for this fan wasn’t the right one though. I’ll have to update the circuit list. The box and the cover also got two coats of paint.

Since I started on the shelf side of the closet and continued the clothes pole from the hole in the support board, I matched that height with the other clothes poles. So I had not figured a good height for a double decker pole area. I kind of lucked out having just enough space to double the poles in one area.

Where the shelves meet I installed straight metal braces for more support. I had to go shopping to pick up these metal braces and while looking for some that were less than $3.97 for a pair, I found this clearance plant rack at Big Lots. For only $12.47 I knew it was about the right size. It is perfect for the narrow corner and can hold shoes neatly. I had been looking on craigslist for something like this with no luck. It was a great find. The closet door will be hung from this side of the closet. It is opposite the matching door in the bathroom. And happily Walmart had the braces for $2 for a package of four.

I successfully moved all the clothes in our old closet to the new one with room to spare. I will hang the coats and jackets in the entry closet instead of the bedroom.