Our New Coat Closet Using IKEA Pax Wardrobes!

There are so many things to love about having an older home but ample closet space is unfortunately not one of them! On our entire first floor (which includes two of our four bedrooms and three of our four bathrooms) we have only two closets – the small clothes closet in our bedroom that my husband and I share and a shallow storage closet off of our kitchen eat-in area. We’ve never had a coat closet and have relied on just a few hooks by the front door which doesn’t work so well when we have guests or in the winter when we have big winter jackets to hang up. And while we keep baskets by our front and garage doors for shoes, they quickly overflow so the area around our entry doors end up being a wasteland of shoes (which drives me nuts!).

I was determined to find a way to create a coat closet and turned my scheming to this little nook with open shelving in our laundry room. The only “before” pic I have of it is this one that I took when we first looked at our house – the previous owners used the open shelves to store extra kitchen items on the top and shoes on the bottom. The shelves only went half way up the wall so it definitely wasn’t the most efficient use of space:

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It’s a really shallow space (only about 16″ deep) so I couldn’t turn it into a traditional coat closet with a rod because there wasn’t enough depth for it. I wanted something more functional than simple hooks and after lots of looking I finally found a solution I love – it was IKEA to the rescue! IKEA has so many creative solutions for small spaces and I was able to use their PAX wardrobes to create the new coat closet I’ve been wanting for years – I’m so, so happy with how it turned out:

It’s a SUPER challenging space to photograph since there’s hardly any natural light and I have to jam myself in the doorway to photograph it but hopefully you can still see what a huge change it is! Our new coat closet and shoe storage is directly across from our washer and dryer – that side of the room is currently a work in progress that I’ll be sharing soon so forgive the mess but this pic should give you a better idea of the space (the light fixture is {this simple flush mount fixture} in warm brass – it’s the same one that I used in our guest bathroom):

And here’s a look at my newly transformed nook from the other side:

I designed our new coat closet using three of {these IKEA PAX wardrobe frames} that are 19 5/8″ wide and only 14″ deep. The three frames are freestanding but are anchored to the wall in the back and bolted to each other. I was lucky with their size – they filled almost the entire nook, leaving only a few inches on each end between the wardrobe frame and the wall. To make it look more built in, we added filler strips to fill that gap and also added a piece of crown molding at the top. I then caulked and painted the fillers and crown molding to match the white paint of the IKEA PAX drawers and frames (more on that at the end of the post).  I was originally planning to add doors to each of the three wardrobes but then decided it would be so much more functional as an open closet so I left off the doors and prettied everything up with some gorgeous pulls and baskets. Here are the details on those and some of the other customized elements we added…

How to Customize IKEA PAX 

IKEA offers quite a few options for accessories to put in their PAX wardrobe frames including {these KOMPLEMENT pull-out clothes rails} that I put in each one of mine. The genius behind them is that you can hang coats in the opposite direction from the way that a typical rod would run which is exactly what I needed for this shallow space! And the rods can be telescoped out which is really nice since we can use that extra space to hang air dry items coming out of the washer:

I installed the clothes rails high enough that our long winter jackets will fit and then I put a pair of {these KOMPLEMENT shelves} in each wardrobe frame – one above and one below the space for coats. On each top shelf, I added one of {these woven baskets} where I put gloves, scarves, and hats (I placed one on the lower shelf in the pic below just to photograph it so you could see it better):

Then at the bottom of each wardrobe unit, I added three of {these KOMPLEMENT drawers} with {these acrylic pulls} in the Golden Champagne finish in the 5 1/16″ size (they’re also available {here}):

The pulls aren’t cheap but they sure make these inexpensive IKEA drawers look like a million bucks! If you’ve been following my projects for a while you might remember that I was thinking about using them on our kitchen island drawers for our kitchen remodel last year but I ultimately decided that one long pull would be better than two shorter ones so I’m thrilled that I found a place to finally use these beauties! We use all of our drawers for shoe storage – they’re small but the girls and I can fit several pairs in each of them. If you don’t want to stack or nest your shoes, you can comfortably fit two pairs of women’s shoes:

(These are two of my favorites by the way – my blush espadrille sandals can be found {here} and slip-on sneakers {here}.) If you want to nest or overlap shoes you can fit several more pairs:

Men’s shoes are obviously a tighter fit – I can fit two pairs of Jeff’s shoes in a drawer when nesting them on their sides. 

Covers & Plugs for IKEA PAX Holes

One of my tips for making IKEA PAX frames look more like custom cabinetry is to cover all of the holes. It’s amazing what a difference it makes! I used several different things as hole fillers. There were two tiny holes at the bottom of each frame that I simply filled with caulk. Then, for all of the holes that run along the edges of the PAX frames, I used IKEA’s VARIERA cover plates that you can find at IKEA {here} or for a few bucks more on Amazon {here}. It’s tedious work to cover each hole with a plug but worth it. I took a pic midway through filling the holes so you can see the difference it makes:

There were holes at the top of the IKEA units that I filled too – I covered the IKEA cam lock holes with {these adhesive cover caps} and I covered the 3/8″ open holes at the top with {these hole plugs} – both were a perfect fit:

You could also simply fill all of the holes with wood filler and sand and paint to match. I chose not to because… 1. that is a LOT of work and 2. I prefer to use removable covers to keep my options open for future customization. 

Paint Color to Match IKEA PAX in White

As I mentioned earlier, we added filler pieces between the wall and the two end PAX wardrobes and also added crown above the PAX wardrobes that I painted white to match. I looked at LOTS of white color swatches to find a good match for the IKEA PAX frames and drawers but couldn’t find one that I thought would work well so the talented guys in the paint department at our local Ring’s End came to the rescue. They did a great job coming up with a close match! It’s mixed in INSL-X Cabinet Coat in Satin (it’s important to use this same exact base) – here’s the exact formula:

I think that covers all of the little details about my new open coat closet and shoe storage, but if I missed anything you have questions about, don’t hesitate to ask! I’m probably also going to use the IKEA PAX system for the new walk-in closet we’ll have as part of our master bathroom addition – putting together all of the wardrobes is a pain but you can’t beat the look for the price. The planning for our bathroom addition has been slow going with some hurdles due to its proximity to our septic system but all of those issues have now been resolved and I’m working on sourcing the final products so we can get going on it this fall – can’t wait!  

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!