How to design and build a wardrobe

Building a proper wardrobe is like building a home. Indeed, you should think of it like a home, because it is something you're going to live in. It must be comfortable and suit all your needs.

Edith Head


Now ain't that the truth? In daily life a well designed wardrobe saves you time and money. Gone will be the mornings spent rushing around trying to locate your grey trousers, or your red polo neck sweater. Gone will be the days of finding your new pink silk Laura Ashley dress crushed on the floor under an avalanche of winter shoes. Everything will have a place. Oh the dream was so sweet. And it is finally here.



After almost 5 years of looking for a wardrobe company that would design and build my dream wardrobe, without me needing to sell a vital organ to pay for it, I came across this post The View Along the Way - Closet reveal .

And my eyes were opened to the possibilities. I could design and build my own wardrobe. Brilliant!
Why had I never considered this before?

So off to work I went.

Step one: Cull your wardrobe contents.
By far the hardest part of the whole process. Now is the time to discard any item that is too well worn to be seen in public again, anything stained, misshaped, unflattering, or just plain ugly. This includes shoes, belts, handbags, and accessories.

Stocktake whatever is left and decide what should be grouped together.  Business clothes, leisure wear, etc. I went with a simple tops, bottoms, long items, shoes, bags, underwear, folded items, and miscellaneous things (bathing suit, sarongs, gloves, etc).

Step 2 Decide on your design.
Pinterest is the place for this pleasant task. I drew my plan on some math book grid paper. I measured my wardrobe area and wrote the dimensions onto the outside lines. Then I drew up spaces for each type of item from my stocktake list. When calculating the area, you need to consider how long a space you'll need. Include the length of the hanging garment from the rail, including the hanger itself. Do not measure from the top of the space. You'll need room to put the hanger on and off  the rail with ease.

Step 3 Engage the Labour.
Now was the time to convince The Bloke that he should abandon the half-done garage storage project (Build a garage storage unit) and move his carpentry skills into the wardrobe.
If you are thinking you or your husband /partner don't have the skills for this project, add a 'yet' to this thought. While The Bloke is very handy with metal and engines, until the kitchen cabinets (Building a retro inspired kitchen shelving unit) he hadn't done a lot of woodwork other than basic stuff like fencing (just nailing in place straight cut boards). Once I showed him the wardrobe post he thought he could do it.

Step 4 Buy / hire a router.
A router made a huge difference to how professional this job looked. The router cuts out a space in the wood into which you slot the shelf. This makes the unit look like one complete object rather than several pieces stuck together. We bought our router from Bunnings for about $90.
It did take a bit of practice to get the hang of using it. The Bloke recommends clamping a board onto the piece you are about work on. This means you can rest the router against the board and cut a nice straight line.

The router creates the space for the shelf to slot into the upright side. Once its filled and painted it looks like one piece. Can't emphasis enough what a difference this made to the end result.

Step 5 Measure twice, cut once.
This old adage is vital if you want to avoid martial disharmony and any swearing or throwing of small pieces of equipment (or large ones for that matter).
Again make sure to measure your longest item of clothing to be hung so whatever you have decided to put into that area, the section is made long enough so the clothes don't drape on the floor. Don't forget to allow space for the item to be moved on and off the railing.

Step 6 Make your wardrobe.
The Bloke cut all the pieces according to our measurements and then added the routing slots. He used glue and screws to secure the shelves. Right angle brackets were used to attach the shelving units to the wall.
The other thing that made a big difference to the end result was, again, a tip from The View Along the Way Closet make-over. We attached to the front face of the units a 1 1/4 inch strip of cut pine to give it that chunky solid look. What a difference that made when I compare it to the garage unit (Build a garage storage unit).

Step 7 Fill and paint.
We used plaster to fill any gaps or holes. Any nail or screws were tapped in (or screwed in) so they sat below the surface of the wood and were covered with plaster. Once dry, I sanded the excess off and painted the whole thing.  One undercoat and two top coats.  This is a long tedious process and in reflection I should have done the undercoat before the wood was cut up as it would have been so much faster.

And voila...dream wardrobe complete. It was worth every second of work. After a while I did add some wire baskets and as many hooks as I could to store all those little items that never seem to have a place, like fabric flower brooches and fascinators and long beads, and nail polish, and toe separators and on and on...

Sadly when my mobile was stolen most of my photos of the building process were lost (along with all my fiji holiday snaps. Whaaaaa) so only a few of the end result are here and one from the construction. But apart from the routing, we used the same technique as the garage storage unit, so check out that post for details.

The cost of this fabulous creation? Materials (wood, nails, brackets, screws) approx $570 + $90 for the router. The paint and filler we had left over from painting the interior walls. Quite a substantial saving on the commercial wardrobe that would have cost several thousand dollars.

A few wire baskets for holding my purse collection. These were screwed to the free wall and have been soooo useful.

The two free standing units were free from a friend. I have painted one white which turned out better than I had thought, so I must get on to painting the other one!

 I already had the white cane baskets from a unit I used elsewhere in the house. They fit quite well, but will eventually be changed out for black fabric ones.

Hangers that are all the same would be great and make the whole space look more uniform...one day.

This photo is a reflection in the mirror covering the inside wall. This wall couldn't be used for anything else as it backs onto the cavity for the sliding door. The mirror is great for making the space look huge and, of course for checking out my outfit for the day.

The blokes shoe storage...I take no responsibility for this.

So very happy with the end result. A place for everything.

I'm pretty lucky to have such a big space. I'd just like to say after the stocktake and clear out The Bloke has more clothes than me!!!!

But not as many handbags...

Pebble and paving garden path

"But circumstances change. Small causes lead to large effects. New paths are added.
And all anyone can do...is choose".

Kelseyleigh Reber

There is most often that one spot in your garden that really annoys you right? And each time you see it you are reminded that you STILL haven't done anything about it. You berate yourself and swear to rectify it immediately...shortly...in the very near future...next year.

The pathway leading to our lovely new deck is that spot for me. When we moved here it was an old cracked asphalt walkway. Over the years and as the rest of the house became more renovated that path began to look worse and worse.

I decided to concrete over the already defined space. And so a friend dug the asphalt up in preparation. Then I began the tedious process of finding a tradesman and getting quotes. When I finally managed to find someone willing to so such a small area, it was way outside my budget. I thought about laying the concrete myself, and was working up my courage when another idea saved me.

I was looking at photos of the garden of a friend. One of the photo's was of her pathway around the side of her house and I was instantly captured. The photo showed ten large paving slabs laid in a row and surrounded by pebbles. This looked easy, surely it couldn't be that easy? I haven't wasted all this time being annoyed about something that could be sorted in a day could I?

Yes I could.

So off to the landscape depot (Central landscape, sorry Bunnings, it was just a price and convenience thing!)
As luck would have it, there were some end-of-line pavers going for $5 each, rather then $14.95 each that I'd seen at other stores. Hoo-ray!

The pathway is quite wide so we decided on two columns of pavers to help fill the space. As these were end-of-line, we could only get 13 pavers, so had to plan our design around this limitation.

As the area was already defined and mostly flat we only needed to give it a bit of a smooth over to get rid of  any bumps in the ground. If you don't have a set space you would have to dig it out and use some kind of compactor to flatten out the earth. But I'm no expert so I can only tell you what I did.

I covered the whole area in Weedmat making sure I overlapped the pieces so there was no space for weeds to grow through. Around the parameter edges is more difficult, and in the end you have to accept that you will need to pull out a few weeds that push up there.

Next The Bloke set out a string line to make sure the pavers were equal distance from the concrete edging that was already there, and from each other. I do love symmetry.

Then the pavers were laid on their allotted spaces.  We used one bag of finely crushed gravel to lay under the pavers to make sure they were completely level and there was no wobble when stood upon. A level really helped this process and it was the part that took the bulk of the time.

Once this was complete we shovelled on the pebbles. We used something called Hoki-Poki, which are quite small multi-coloured river pebbles. I had read that the smaller the pebble the easier on bare feet.
Well here in New Zealand we are often barefooted so small pebbles it was.

A going over with the rake to smooth out the pebbles and it was done.

What a difference! I did wonder if the pebbles would float with heavy rain, or if the pavers would move, but they have been down now for around six weeks and we have had torrential rain and the path is still looking great. I don't use weed spray due to the dog and the children spending a lot of time in the garden, especially now it is summertime here, so I have had to pull a few weeds, but not many. I may have spend 10 minutes in total over the last six weeks on weeding.

The finished path (the few dark spots are bark from the garden beds caused by the dog running through chasing the ball. Annoying, but great job for the kids when they want to earn a little cash, they come out and pick it up and throw it back into the garden.

 

 

The before shot is not available due to a technical hitch... but just imagine a cracked, weed-filled path so unattractive that visitors chose to walk across the lawn instead of using it!!

 

 

The area covered in Weedmat, and if you look closely, a string line down the middle of the path.

   Laying the first pavers on top of the crushed gravel.