Thoughts on the Pax Wardrobes Anyone?

I'm not sure if it's quite as simple as the influence of that unreasonably dreamy walk-in closet in the Sex and the City Movie, or if it's just that we've finally reached our cumulative breaking point in trying to live with 1940s closets in 2008 (as a pair of clothes horses), but this morning Martin and I reached the closet breaking point and decided it was time to do something.

Since we moved in here three years ago, Martin has actually kept his clothes in Miss P's room closet across the hall from our bedroom, while I have occupied the main bedroom closet. Both closets are small, typical of this era of home, and not particularly awesome uses of space. My closet has a fair bit of room, but a very tiny door, so little of the room is actually usable and well Martin's is in a whole other room, making it not so useful. Plus, as Miss P gets older, she actually wants to use that closet for her own budding clothes horse lifestyle.

So, this morning, we stood in front of the wall where the closet currently exists and began positing how we could rework it. We both agree that ripping out the whole wall and making it into one large and more efficient closet in the way to go. We got out scraps of paper, measuring tapes and past issues of Dwell magazine to figure out how we'd go about making things work. The basic reno problems to solve:

• Once we rip out the full wall to open things up, we'll have a gap of wood (where thh wall once existed) on the floor in need of patching. As long as this is on the inside of the closet, that's not such a problem as it won't be too visible, but still we want it to look decent.
• Because the room is pretty small, and we want to maximize our closet space, we're best to do large sliding doors so we don't have to worry about space for doors to open. Alternatively, we can put a series of small doors in, but hanging a series of small doors in what we want to be a fairly open closet area is not a reno project that Martin's too thrilled about getting involved in.
• And, as usual, it needs to be reasonably priced, but still look good.

Just as we were about to get in the car to head to the hardware store to start figuring out our options for sliding door hardware and such, we decided to check the Ikea catalogue for ideas. We soon decided that we might be best off actually ripping out the walls and setting a Pax wardrobe system right into the removed space and basically drywalling it into place. So, instead of going to the hardware store we darted out to Ikea to take a look and at this point we're pretty sure that's what we're going to do. We can get one of the taller units at 200cm wide and it will basically fill our entire wall. That give us each 100cm of storage (roughly what we each have currently), but hopefully it will give us more usable height storage with the opening up of the closet wall (about an extra 60-70cm of usable height). Now we just need to figure out how to configure the inside, and what kind of doors we want, so if any of you are Pax users, I'd love reviews/thoughts. My questions are:

1. What are your favourite/least favourite inserts/drawers and configurations?
2. Have you tried using sliding doors with a partner? The way this would work, is that Martin and I would each have half of the system and so, if we're both using it at the same time, with the sliding doors we'd not be able to access our full closet (as the doors overlap). In order to access the full closet, the other person's door would need to be fully closed. We're leaning towards the sliding doors for space (though the four small doors would have enough room to open in our small bedroom), but I'm worried we'll end up on each other's nerves.

All thoughts and input are more than welcome. I must have renovator's amnesia, because I'm so excited about hte idea of ripping out that wall right now, I'm tempted to order pizza instead of making dinner and get out the sledge hammer...

Comments

[Laura VW]

We have a wardrobe that is exactly the size you are talking about, and it's great - one of the best things we've bought for our house. Ours is in the oak veneer, and we have outward opening doors rather than sliding ones, so I can't advise on the sliding doors issue. We have shelves high up in each (one per half of the wardrobe), and below that a rail spanning the full 100cm in each half. Then under that on one side we have the metal trouser hanger, which lets you store a dozen or more (plenty more if you double them up) pairs of trousers, and under that a couple of rows of shoe racks. On the other side we have two pull-out wooden drawers. I had been hoping to have one of those shelf divider things that has lots of slots for small items like belts and purses, but this proved impossible because the drawers had to be mounted a little above the base of the unit - the doors have four hinges, and the screws from the bottom hinge are in the place we wanted to attached the drawers, meaning the drawers had to be nudged up a bit. (Essentially there is a line of holes down each side, into which you attach the various optional items like drawers, doors etc, and so you are a little limited by those.) However, the space under the drawers has its uses - stashing magazines, catalogues etc. The way we have our wardrobes set up means we can't hang longer items in there (like dresses), but we have another little wardrobe elsewhere that fits those things in. Have fun and good luck with it!

[meredith]

i have had 2 of the larger pax units (birch finish). i use the top for hanging items and the bottom as a dresser (wood drawers, divided drawers & wire baskets). each works well depending on what you are storing, but i prefer the solid drawers... the wire baskets let you see what's inside, but get messy easily. finally, i also have 2 of the drawers with dividers, which i thought of as too luxurious. (“do i really need a separate compartment for each belt?”) but yes, it has been nice to have a specific place for everything.

i didn’t buy any doors at the time because of the sticker shock ($500 seemed like a lot when i was also trying to also buy a sofa & dining table). so I eventually made some curtains with grommets & hooks on the wardrobe to cover up the closet. here is a picture of the configuration before the curtains: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dityfleur/275631555/in/set-72157600282502288/

hope this helps!

[Emira]

Thanks for your input all. I also got some emails from folks with detailed thoughts as well.

We're just holding off on time to do this now and in the meantime I'm keeping my finger's crossed for a used version to show up on Craigslist.

[katie]

Hi Laura,

I just bought a Pax wardrobe set and had similar sticker shock -- I opted not to get the sliding doors for now and was thinking I would put a curtain on the front of it for now. Can you tell me more about how you did that? I dont know exactly what I would attach a rod to etc..

Thanks!

[Nikki]

I just noticed this on a blog -
http://renovateanddecorate.blogspot.com/

[Solid Wood Flooring]

Wonderful! Thank for sharing :)

[cabin plans]

I had a good read and I can relate to what you're saying here. :)I hope your closet is fine now.

[Account Deleted]

When we moved in to our house, the things that we liked the least were the built-in closets. The doors were crookedly placed and the knobs didn't match the doors' color. That's why we focused on replacing them ourselves. First, we unhinged the doors and painted them according to the color of the room. Then, we bought hand forged iron hardware online to replace the knobs. My husband saw to it that the knobs made the closets look like hand forged iron doors, which was highly creative of him. That was a really fun DIY project, I must say.