THERE'S TREASURE EVERYWHERE: Hall closet optimization

The hallway and hall closet was one of the first areas that we renovated in this apartment, but it wasn't until this past month that we finally got around to adding storage options to the closet. For the past year or two we've just been using free standing plastic shelves left over from college-living and stacked bins. We were motivated to tackle this project now because Christine and her dog Neo have started staying with us on weekdays so that Christine is an easy commute to her master's classes at Simmons. Because we only have one bedroom, she is sleeping on our newly upgraded futon and needed a place to store clothing and other personal items. The hall closet was a nice tucked away place for that! Between our basement storage and the rest of the apartment, we were able to find a home for everything else that had previously been (messily) stored in the closet.

When deciding what to do with the closet we had Christine's needs in mind as well as what would be most functional to us in the future when she is finished with her MSW program. We decided to go with track shelving because of its adjustability, but chose to use polyurithaned pine boards instead of press board for the shelves. We measured everything in advance and then headed to Home Depot for supplies, deciding on 10" wide shelves because they fit a folded towel perfectly and weren't so wide as to make access to the back of the closet difficult.

Here is David installing the track:

We had a bit of trouble finding studs to secure the tracks to because the lath behind the plaster interferes with stud finders. Instead of a stud finder we just tapped a small nail into the wall until we found the studs, and then David measured 16" to estimate where the next stud would be to minimize the number of holes we made. When the shelving was up, I just filled the holes with a bit of spackle.

Here I am deciding how far apart the shelves should be:

We installed hooks on the opposite side of the shelving.

The back of the closet is a bit cumbersome because the ceiling is low to accomodate the staircase for the upstairs apartment. Instead of track shelving we decided to use small strips of pine to support the shelves for a more built in look. We had even more difficulty finding the studs back here, and when cutting the shelving we didn't account for the fact the closet is very off-square, so the final fit wasn't quite as perfect as we had hoped. This may be something we fix in the future, or not. It is a closet after all.

David installing the supports for the back shelving:

Imperfect shelving alignment - boo. It wasn't actually too bad, we could shift them around to make them line up a bit better. In the first photo, below the lower supports, you can just barely see the line of nail holes we made looking for studs.

Here's the finished closet!

This picture is a little bit dark, but it shows the jewelry rack I made for Christine. We used kitchen cabinet pulls and some of our left over paint samples. You can also see the motion detecting lights we installed. We bought them on Amazon and they seem to work really well. They aren't super bright, but they make it so you can mostly see what needs to be seen at night.