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How To Build A Walk In Closet – Our Festive Home DIY Closet

How To Build A Walk In ClosetHow to build a walk in closet! You guys, we built our own closet for the master bedroom! And it fits all our stuff with perfection. And I’m wild about the space. So excited to take you on our little DIY closet journey today.

Legitimately we (read: Matt) built a room from the studs on up and I’m so excited to share the reveal photos and tell you all about how to build a walk in closet in our signature festive home DIY style. Changing the layout of a room to add a walk in closet might seem like crazy construction, but I can tell you it is totally do-able. We’ve never done something like this before, but after tackling kitchens and bathrooms it was actually one of our easier projects. I’ll walk through the steps we took for making this DIY closet come to life, including an awesome Ikea closet hack that we used along the way.

When we moved into the house the master suite situation was not stellar. For as large of a house as ours is, the master bedroom was tiny – the master bath was the smallest bath in the house, and the closet was just a simple wall wardrobe with ugly brass sliders. Certainly not design friendly or effective for keeping our clothes organized on the daily.

However, on the other side of our master bedroom is my boy’s room which was surprisingly large for a kids space.

So we did what any totally sane, closet needing, DIY renovating parents would do and just sweetly took over about 1/4 of his bedroom for this project. ;)

His bedroom is still plenty big and even got a fun refresh we will be sharing soon. By stealing a little from him, we managed to add a DIY walk in closet, increase the bathroom square footage AND make the master bedroom larger in the process. Wins all around, for everyone!

Except my son, but he’s 9… so he will get over it. ;)

DIY Walk In ClosetBefore we jump into to the how, here’s a shot to explain the space a little better. Where the green paint ends was the end of my sons wall and the chair you see through the wall is where our master bedroom is. We created a door to the closet right on that wall and made a new wall for the kid’s room to end at. Leaving us a great square of space to install and build out the walk in closet for our master.

We started by building out the walls, which Matt managed to do in no time at all! Studs and drywall, tape and mud. Although these are the basics of building out any space, this one he designed with all our closet functions in mind. This photo above shows the rough new wall built out in the kid’s space.

Master Bedroom closet ideasSince our white washed pine flooring was already laid from my son’s first bedroom design and we have the same flooring in our master bedroom, we decided to keep the flooring to run all the way through.

Once the walls were built and the floor was patched we were able to start on the actual how to build a walk in closet design.. aka the fun part!

Build A Custom Walk In Closet

How To Build A Walk In Closet

I knew we wanted a custom look without a crazy price tag. And just to be clear if you ever look at custom closet price tags they are no joke! IKEA TO THE RESCUE. We used a combination of the MALM dressers along with the BILLY bookcases and a few extra pieces of white MDF board to create our own custom closet built ins. Originally, I was going to go white with the dressers so it would all look like one solid piece, but at the last minute we decided on a wood tone – which will be repeated in the master bath coming soon. I’m so glad we did, because the wood adds a nice texture to the space and keeps it from feeling too static.

Ikea Closet Hack

Ikea Closet Hack

We calculated the square footage we had available as we determined how to build a walk in closet that would fit us just right, and went to work sketching out a basic design. Luckily, the Billy Bookcases come in a number of different sizes. For our closet DIY shelving we used 4 Billy bookcases; 2 small wide ones that we placed on top of the dressers and 2 tall skinny ones that stand up between the dressers and the wall. We then connected them with the two longer white MDF boards purchased at our local hardware store.

You can see in this photo how the pieces looked all stacked together. The shelving gives a great spot for folded sweaters, jewelry and stacking baskets for scarfs.

Walk in closet ideas

Speaking of copper, we ended up with quite the copper theme in this space. This copper peak light also from Ikea quickly became my color palate jumping off point and is such a fun statement piece for the room.

Copper closet rods

We then built out custom clothing rods with copper piping. This ended up being one of my favorite projects and really works to pull everything together.

DIY clothing rod with pipes

DIY Closet Rods With Pipes

To create the DIY copper closet rods we used materials all available at our local hardware store:

  • Copper Piping
  • Copper Elbows
  • Copper Straps

To create the DIY walk in closet custom rod look we cut the pipes to size and connected the pipes to the elbows, before screwing the straps into the shelving units. It honestly took about 20 minutes, cost under $30 and give such a pretty design boost to the space. This project is so easy you could use it no matter your closet configuration to create a fresh look… full renovation or not.

A few copper and black hangers finish if off and gives a great jumping off point for all our colorful clothes.

Build A DIY Walk In Closet for the master bedroom

The shoe shelves are simple white board MDF shelves that we attached with brackets to the walls. I love how we were able to build out each portion of the closet to match our own wardrobe needs. It’s such a fun treat to have a space that works just for us.

The small stool and rug in the center are both from TJ Maxx and give a nice spot to sit when putting on shoes or generally day dreaming about what I will wear next.

walk in closet decor ideas

When we originally finished off the space, it still felt a little too white for me. Even with the fun copper and textured wood tones. So we decided to add a wall of wallpaper to the backside. This is the same wallpaper we used in our guest room, just a different color. I love the texture and color it brings to the space without being too overwhelming.

All in all, this project we tackled how to build a walk in closet, has added so much goodness to our everyday routine and it’s a great investment in the future of our house. I find myself just smiling every time I step inside. :) Now, on to the rest of the master suite… look for a master bath update coming your way soon.

PS. See the full Festive Home Tour right here.

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