An Affordable Custom Closet for Her

Our house is going through some major life changes right now as we prepare to welcome a new baby this May. It became very apparent earlier this year that in order for us to make this house work, we really needed to focus on implementing some organizational systems throughout our home. Short of selling our home for something larger (we definitely had those discussions), we decided that we could hold off a bit longer but that these steps toward a more functional home were absolutely necessary in order for all of us to “fit” and function in our already small space.

If you follow me on IG then you all know that we’re carving out a little nursery space in our bedroom for baby and with those plans in mind, we got to work on re-imagining our bedroom space to make room for the newest little house guest. Our only dresser got booted to make way for the crib and we made the decision to convert one of the 3 closets in our room into a baby closet/changing station. Those two decisions alone put us down a dresser and an entire closet which meant we needed to optimize the heck out of the closets we were left with in order to fit all the things that were newly displaced.

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Today I’m showing you how we transformed my closet using the Boaxel closet system from Ikea. Here’s what it looked like when we started:

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Keep in mind, we had to fit everything you see above (the photos above show my stuff which was spread across two separate closets), plus everything that I kept in the dresser (scroll up to see the dresser). I didn’t think it was possible but…we did it guys! Let’s open the door and take a look inside!

I’m not going to walk you through the installation process because it seriously couldn’t have been easier. I used the Ikea planning tool on their website to map out our closet, customize it with shelves, drawers, hanging rods and the like for our needs, I added everything to my virtual shopping cart, paid, and picked everything up the next day using the Ikea Click-N-Collect service.

The entire closet system is supported by just 3 pieces! There’s a horizontal suspension rail that goes across the top and then a couple of tracks that hang from the suspension rail. Everything gets secured into studs or heavy duty anchors and once you have those pieces installed, you just snap your components (drawers, shelves, racks) into place with brackets and you’ve got yourself a closet!

For my closet, I choose a stack of 3 wire mesh drawers on the bottom which now holds everything (and more!) that used to be stored in the dresser: socks/underwear, pajamas, work out AND work pants, plus all my denim too!

The drawers slide out with just enough clearance to avoid hitting the inside of the door frame. For reference, this closet is approx. 36″ wide x 27″ deep x 96″ tall and we installed the 32″ Boaxel system. It also comes in a 24″ width too.

The hanging rod is installed a bit higher on the track to make room for the three drawers below but it’s still easily in reach plus it gives my longer shirts and dressers more room to hang freely.

What I love most about this system is how customizable it is to fit your clothing needs. Everything just snaps into place along these tracks and can be configured any which way.

For my long dresses, I simply fold them over one of my velvet hangers as you would a pair of pants. In an ideal situation, I’d have a large enough closet with space for a long hang section but we’re making it work with the limited space we have and I’m not at all bothered by hanging my dresses this way.

The slim velvet hangers allow me to maximize my already small wardrobe unlike a wood hanger. Plus their velvet texture makes for the perfect non-slip surface.

Up on the shelf I keep additional items I often reach for: hats, maternity clothing, and all my swimsuits. I ordered these canvas bins to hold items up on the shelf and in doing so, we’re maximizing the vertical space in the closet whereas it was a bit wasted previously.

I took advantage of the inside of the door too and installed this over the door strap for some of my nicer hats / and my spare purses. Plus there’s room to spare!

I have a minimal wardrobe as it is but I still feel like there’s still room to grow which is nice. Plus…once I’m no longer pregnant, that’ll free up even more space! I can pack away / donate my maternity clothing and that’ll allow me to expand my wardrobe even further.

I did get a couple of questions regarding where I keep shoes when I shared about our closet system over on Instagram and the Boaxel system does offer a shoe shelf component, but we’re not shoes-in-the-house people so all our shoes stay in the garage. If I did have a few pairs of special occasion shoes that I wanted to store here (again…I have a minimal wardrobe so I really don’t have or wear anything fancier than a loafer) I could store them under the bottom basket which sits about 8″ off the floor.

All in, this particular configuration cost $96.00 not including tax, the canvas bins, or door strap. NINETY SIX DOLLARS! It’s certainly not a high end custom closet, but the added functionality and storage we gained is worth more than what we paid.

If you have any other question about the Boaxel closet system from Ikea, feel free to leave them in the comments below and I will be happy to answer them and if you want even more Boaxel closet inspo, stay tuned because we still have two more closets to reveal!