How to create a closet where there is none?

Factual Questions
1

Time to make use of my $4.95…

I am leaving my beloved, well closeted, studio apartment to share my friend’s townhouse. The basement room that I am moving into doesn’t actually have a closet :eek: There is rod in the laundry room where the previous residents of the basement have hung their clothes, but I’d rather have my clothes that are in regular use in my room and just use the laundry room area for out of season or otherwise un-needed clothes.

An old school armoire would be too big for the small room and out of my budget. A garment rack is a possibility, but I would want to find a way to hide/disguise it. I’ve also looked at Elfa closets, but they are far from a bargain.

What other options are there that I have not considered?

2

Garmet rack + Folding Screen = Problem Solved. :cool:

3

There was actually a recent thread in IMHO on this very topic. I personally vote for a garmet rack with everything kept neat.

4

ikea has storage ideas, usually pretty reasonably priced. Various clothing racks and boxes and such, but that might give you ideas.

5

ooohhh pretty!

Did you see it in person or just on the site? If you actually saw it, was it fairly solid or did you get the feeling that a heavy winter coat would make it wobble?

And from the other thread, I like the Canvas wardrobe thing that the The Company Store has. The Container Store has something similar…

My biggest concern is how stable these things are. Having once helped a friend load her stuff on a non-industrial, but not a $5 special, garment rack and then seen it collapse 20 minutes later, I am loathe to repeat the experience

6

You could always build a closet. Home improvement is fun.

7

What y’all need is a chiffarobe. Then, if’n you decide you don’t like it, you can bust it up with hatchet.

8

A quick and relatively non-eyesore way to create a closet:

Get a piece of 3/4" plywood 24" wide by however long you want your closet to be.

Buy a length of closet pole 1" shorter than the above length.

Get a few chunks of sturdy chain, around 4" long (all the same length) plus two nice hefty screw in hooks per chain piece.

Draw a line down the center of the board, the long way. Screw in one of the hooks near each end of the board, plus evenly spaced ones along the line so that the hooks are no more than 3’ apart. (For example, a 3 foot closet only needs the two end hooks, a closet between 3’ and 6’ needs 3 hooks, and so forth.)

Screw the other hooks into the closet pole in matching pattern.

Attach plywood securely to the ceiling, as in long screws into beams. Hang the closet pole by sliding links of the chain onto the pairs of screw eyes.
Now to enclose the closet to hide the clutter: Obviously you only need to cover the exposed sides. Meaning if you tucked your closet into a corner, just one side and the front. In the center of a wall, both sides and the front. In the center of the room (WHY???) all four sides.

So things hang straight and free, and to allow access, use separate panels of cloth. One for each side that is exposed, two for the front.

In each case the height of the panel is the measurement from the ceiling to just shy of the floor plus 1/2" to turn under at the top and 2" to use for a bottom hem. The width of the side panel is the width of the closet plus 2". The width of each of the front panels is one-half of the length of your closet plus 6"

(About material: use whatever you like, of course, but as a practical note, flat sheets bought from a discount home furnishings type store will be way cheaper than material bought off the bolt at a fabric store. Uh – it should be opaque, yes?)

Preparing panels: Turn under 1" on each of the long sides (the sides that run from ceiling to floor) and stitch. Fold up the 2" hem and stitch close to the raw edge. Turn under 1/2" at the ceiling edge – you can stitch this end down, or simple iron it well.

Hang panels: Do the side panel(s) first. Use a staple gun to staple through the folded down 1/2 inch into the side edge of the closet board. (The panel should match the board in width.)

Front panel 1: Start stapling this one 2" back from the front on one side, then continue around the corner and along the front until the panel is completely attached. Front panel 2: Start stapling 2" back from the front on the other side, then continue around the corner and along the front. This second panel should overlap the edge of the first one by about four inches.

The overlaps at side corners and front should ensure that your closet’s contents are not exposed by any gaps.

Possible needed tweak: if your material is very light weight and/or it’s a breezy room, your closet panels could blow around and look messy. The solution is to weight the hems. Go back to the hardware store and buy lengths of chain to match the various hem lengths. Slide a length of chain inside each hem and tack it to the cloth in a couple of places.
I see this description is quite long. It actually takes very little time to do. Once we were home from the hardware store, we had the closet finished and in use in less than two hours.

9

You can hide any hanging system you set up with a set of curtains/drapes. You mount the curtain rod on the ceiling in front of the ‘closet’ area then buy 84" or 92" drapes and thread them on the rod. Voila, closet doors. Here is one company that sells ceiling mounted rods for showers or closets http://www.hafeleonline.com/pdf/products/hewi/31H-35H.pdf
but you don’t really need special hardware for it.