Yes, we ran in to a slight hang-up in the baby’s room, that has ironically enough left us with the inability to actually hang anything up in the room! We had grand plans to redo the closet because honestly, it desperately needed to be completely overhauled.
The closet isn’t a fancy walk-in closet or anything like that, but it has more than enough room for baby clothes and other necessary items. So what was so wrong with it? Well, let’s start with the doors. The doors on the closet seemed ok when we first moved in to the house almost five years ago, but over time, we realized it just wouldn’t work. They are white paneled hollow-core doors that are hung on a track that have to slide to get something out of the closet. The main issues with these though is that they were loud when they slid, the hung down really low on the track and didn’t fit correctly in the closet opening, and you couldn’t easily access anything in the middle of the closet. So, we had a plan to replace the doors with bi-fold doors that would work better in the space. That plan is on hold though due to our next issue – the closet shelves.
The shelves that were in the closet when we moved in are the same one’s we’ve had in there until a couple of weeks ago. There were only two of them and one had a metal rod that was used to hang clothes attached to it. That shelf was secured to the wall in the middle of the closet with a single bracket and rested on a piece of wood attached to the wall in the back/side of the closet. The top shelf wasn’t secured in any way shape of form, it simply rested on pieces of wood that had been attached to the wall on either side of the closet. Considering that top shelf was 10 feet long, it sagged in the middle if anything of significant weight rested on it. So, we took down those shelves and bough a Rubbermaid Closet Shelving system to put up in it’s place. We have the same closet system in our master bedroom closet and it works really well for us since we can easily move a shelf, add a rod for hangers, etc…
Unfortunately, the shelving system didn’t work out the way we hoped. Our house was built in the 50’s and has plaster walls. What I’ve discovered with our type of walls is that it’s hard to get a drill bit/screw/anchor into the wall because it’s such a hard surface, but once you get a hole drilled, the wall has a great potential to basically just disintegrate, leaving a huge gaping hole much larger than you need, rendering it completely useless.
So, what now? After really racking our brains on how we can hang things in the closet without being able to attach anything to the walls, we finally figured out the perfect solution. A wardrobe! A freestanding closet basically that has attached doors that can be closed that we can slide into the closet to take up less space in the room. This eliminates our need to even put doors on the closet itself and we don’t have to worry about trying to get something to attach to the walls and actually stay there! After shopping around quite a bit, we landed on this wardrobe from IKEA. I’m so happy with our decision and can’t wait to get it put together and filled with all the clothes we have for the little one!
Ikea Brimnes 3-door Wardrobe