All About Closet Shelving

Where To Start, How To Choose

Wood shelving

You are probably more familiar with the closet wire shelving and melamine styles of closet organizers; there are real wood alternatives that you might want to consider. They consist of ladder style uprights as well as shelves that work in a similarly modular fashion to the wire and melamine units. They also come in several different stain colors ranging from dark oak to light maple. The only tools you should require are a handsaw, stud finder, and drill.

Wire closet shelving
Wire closet shelving is quick and easy to build and use. The shelves themselves can be cut with a light duty bolt cutter and can usually be found in sizes that correlate to most standard closets. One of my favorite designs includes a clothes-hanging bar that allows hangers to slide unimpeded from one side of the bar to another. If you have used the kind where the evenly space braces block the sliding of hangers you understand the importance of this feature.

Another aspect of wire closet shelving that makes it attractive is that it is easy to reconfigure. Using the longer uprights in a childs bedroom, you can lower the wardrobe bar to their height and raise it, as they get older. This feature is not only convenient for them it allows them to complete the chore of hanging up and organizing clothes so their overworked parents don't have to.

Melamine shelving

There are two ways to construct a melamine (particle board and polymer laminate) closet-shelving unit. The first is to purchase pre-cut and easy-to-assemble units and the other is to purchase melamine panels that must be cut and sized. If you are fairly handy with power tools and measuring, then by all means head over to the lumber department at the local home improvement store. If you are like the rest of us, go on over to the closet organizing section, or on-line, and purchase pre-cut shelving. These pre-cut units offer a great degree of flexibility with nooks for sweaters, shoes and other hard to store items.

With all of the above shelves it is important to keep in mind that closets have generally standard dimensions or at least dimension multiples that organizers adhere to. This is one of the main reasons that these shelving systems should not offer a huge amount of challenge to the average do-it-yourselfer and are likely to be much less of a job than you might think.

More information on closet shelving