The Closet Big Reveal

At long last, time for the culminating closet post. You've been very patient as I've struggled to find time to blog (and I'm only getting to it today thanks to a sick day; such is the life of a parent). So to review, we left off with the space painted and ready to go, literally about 6 months after I'd started taking apart the old shelving and begun to spackle and years since we'd wanted to do something with that unorganized black hole of a linen closet. Back in 2016, we paid to have a professional organizer from the Container Store come and give us advice. After a bunch of back and forth (and some successes in other rooms like our kitchen and office), we had the start of a plan for the upstairs linen closet. But we weren't convinced or ready to pull the trigger, so it sat for, well, apparently 2.5 years.

The idea was that instead of using a system mounted to the wall in such a narrow space impeded by ducts, we opt instead for something on wheel that could be entirely wheeled out when needed, to access the things in the back. If you could look from the ceiling, it looked something like this (the gray areas are the vent ducts, the white with Xs in them are the modular shelves):

If you could stand at the ducts on the right and look at the left wall, it would be something like this. Notice that they are all on wheels so that they can be totally pulled out of the closet?

The system, called InterMetro, came in all heights (the poles could even be custom cut) and several widths and depths. We altered the plans a bit when it finally came time to buy, choosing to use two sets of shelves instead of one, so that wheeling them out would be easier. We ended up with a 24'' and a 36'' set of shelves, both at the narrower 14'' depth. They are 72'' high, plus the 3'' or so of the wheels, and just clear the door to be rolled out in the hallway.

Assembly wasn't too bad except for a couple key points. The first was that these stickers, on each and every pole (of which there were 8) were incredibly sticky and took an enormous amount of elbow grease and Goo-gone to remove. Not cool, Container Store. For the prices we paid for this, they could have used something that didn't leave a disgusting residue.

The second thing was that the clips that lock the shelves into place at their desired heights are not nearly as secure as advertised. Once everything was in place, I don't think they will shimmy. But because the locking mechanism could wiggle as you wedge the shelf into place, the shelves are all just slightly off from level. Again, I think, given the price, that the Container Store could have done better.

There was also the added stress of deciding it would be "no big deal" to assemble one of them downstairs while our littlest napped and then carry it up. It turned out that it was exactly just too big to clear the turn into the stairwell and make it up. We got a nice nick in the wall on the stairs thanks to that stunt. Oops.

You'll notice that we also used metal ventilation taping to close off the gap on the right between the duct and the wall, in an effort to mask the fact that there was no way I was able to paint behind there.

The icing on the cake for this simple shelving solution was returning to an old favorite, elfa, for the door. We've used the elfa system in our office closet and living room and the ingenious door storage is something we probably ought to add everywhere. It's now the home to all the medicines and first aid things we've kept in our downstairs closet, sorted by type (cold, pain, topical creams, bandages, etc.). This frees up a ton of space in our downstairs closet to put the kids bathtubs away.

In all, we really couldn't be happier. We now have a place for our linens, pillows, and out-of-season blankets, the content of our medicine cabinet, and some other various things (my yarn stash! extra toothpaste, floss, and toilet paper that used to send us running to the basement!).

It took 3 years, but at least it's lovely to behold now.