Great Storage Solution For The Home Office Closet Or, Really, Any Closet

Remember this room? 😉 Right now, this room almost seems like it’s from another lifetime. I love this office, it’s very different from the one I’m gradually putting together in the Dollhouse.

This is probably a good time to explain a little better how I’m kind of envisioning this room looking if/when I finally move to the Dollhouse permanently. The Pottery Barn Bedford file cabinets/storage units that you see in the photo above will probably end up underneath the windows on either side of the room, or maybe down just one side of the room. I could see placing the unit that holds the printer, against that section of wall on the immediate right side of the desk so it would be easily accessible for printing. I miss having a printer available when I’m here. I’ll be creating a seating area somewhere in this room. I may even have two chairs instead of just having one as I currently have in my office back in Georgia. Maybe I should start calling the Georgia house the “Home Alone house” since it was the house featured in that movie that made me fall in love with my home in Georgia. Would that be easier than always saying the house back in Georgia, or the Georgia house when referring to that house? Let me know what you think.

It’s so serendipitous that I chose a blue refrigerator for the Home Alone house back in the day. I wonder if it would work well with the blue walls in the Dollhouse office, although I’m not sure if there’s a good spot for it there. The recently purchased kitchen refrigerator is just a few steps away, so I really don’t need a mini-fridge in the Dollhouse office. Ummm, maybe I could use it in the basement, instead—just thinking out loud.

But that’s not really what this post is about—it’s really about a storage idea that I recently added to the Dollhouse office. If you’ve been reading BNOTP for a while, you may remember when I built this Ikea Expedit inside the closet in the Georgia office. I love all the extra storage that it adds to this closet.

Eventually, I added a second row of baskets. If you could see the Expedit now, all the cubbies are filled with stuff that I use all the time.

The Expedit has been phased out and replaced by what Ikea calls the Kallax. From what I’ve read, the only difference is that they made the sidewalls of the Kallax a good bit thinner than they were on the Expedit. I think they also made it a lot lighter because the pieces from which the Kallax is built, look and feel less dense. A couple of weeks back I ordered the set-up that you see below, and it showed delivery was available for the very next day. Awesome! When I awoke the following morning, there was an email from Ikea stating that all the drawers, except one, were not available. A second email shared that the doors weren’t available either. Argh. Not sure why it let me buy them when less than 24 hours later, the drawers/doors were determined to be out of stock. The Kallax was delivered that day and I got to work assembling it for the Dollhouse closet.

The closet in the Dollhouse office is located across the room from my desk. As I share photos of the Kallax inside, please try to ignore how badly the closet needs painting. Not sure why, but though the rooms in the Dollhouse have been painted in recent years, the closets look like they haven’t been painted in a very long time, and boy, do they need it! Maybe that will be a project for me to take on this winter. I’ve never painted plaster walls before, so I need to do some research to see if there’s something special that I need to do or know. Anyone have plaster walls and are there any special concerns that I should know about when painting those?

Building an Expedit or a Kallax inside a closet is a bit of a challenge.

But it is doable! You just have to build it vertically instead of horizontally on the floor.

When building the Kallax (or Expedit back in the day) in a tight space like a closet, it is necessary to build it in an elevated position up off the floor because one of the last steps is installing screws from underneath the unit to secure the final side wall. Originally, I had the whole thing sitting atop two large, strong shipping boxes, but when I added on the final sidewall, I had to lower it down some to get that final side piece on due to the slant of the closet ceiling. There’s always a way to get these things done, just takes a little preplanning, and a lot of flying by the seat of your pants. Hahaha!

These two screws were the final ones that needed to be installed before I could finish the building process and lower the Kallax down to the floor. One advantage of the thinner side walls and less dense wood sections of the Kallax (as compared to the Expedit) is that the Kallax, when completed, is a lot lighter. That really comes in handy when it’s time to pull out the books one by one to lower it down to the floor.

Here’s how the Kallax looked all assembled. I know it looks like there’s not a lot of room in front of the Kallax, but I (and my 10-year-old grandson, because he had to try, too ;)) was easily able to slide by the front of the Kallax to access the slanted left side of the closet. I may end up removing part of the quarter round behind the Kallax just to push it back another inch or so, but I can get by it to the other end of the closet as it is without any problem. See that string in the upper right part of this picture? This closet had a bare-bulb light that was operated via that pull string, and the string literally hung face-level whenever the door was opened. I kept running into it the whole time I was building the Kallax until I was finally able to rest it on the top of the Kallax, as seen in that photo. Notice the small box on the top, center shelf—that’s the new motion-activated light I purchased for the closet. Problem solved!

Here’s how it looked after it was installed. Sorry about the weird shadows. I can’t really take a photo of the light in the off position since it comes on as soon as I open the closet. I seriously love this light! It stays on the entire time I’m in the closet but goes off around 20-25 seconds after I close the closet door. No more pull string hanging down right in my face! Love that! (Motion-Activated Light is available here: Closet Light, Motion Activated.)

I purchased a set of storage baskets for the Kallax. They measure 13 x 13 inches. I love their stripey, mixed-material design.

The baskets came in a set of four—which is perfect if you have room for the larger Kallax, so currently, I have a spare. I will probably purchase another set of baskets because I like the look (and usage) I have with my Expedit in Georgia which has two rows of baskets. (Baskets are available here: Baskets for Ikea Kallax or Expedit.)

I know it would have been easier to paint the closet without the Kallax inside, but I really, really needed and wanted this storage right now. When it comes time to paint the closet, I’ll just scoot over to the far left end of the closet, which is the part you can’t see, and then I’ll push the Kallax outward toward the door. I should be able to get a roller back there to do the part of the wall that’s directly behind the Kallax. Hope you find this post helpful in case you decide a Kallax would work inside one of your closets. I may be the only person out there using these inside closets. Ha!