2023 Kathryn's Closet

Kathryn's Custom Closet

Year Built: 2023
Design By: Michael Lieske
Materials: Pine ACX Plywood (walls, shelves, braces), Solid Pine (trim)
Joinery: Through Hole screws, Pocket Screws, Dowels, Brads
Finish: Primer- Zinsser Smart Prime thinned 15%, Paints- Benjamin Moore Advanced Hybrid Alykd custom color thinned 10% & Sherwin Williams Duration Satin custom color thinned 10%. All applied with HVLP sprayer and touch up with brush

Design

I took a considerable amount of time on the design trying to get inspiration from things I found on the web. This is a fun part of any project for me. I finally settled on a design that made this a big project. Here are some of the drawings and the cut list I did in Excel.

A couple of key design choices:
Make the system modular so each module can be assembled separately (except for the north module). This added more walls but allowed assembly to just use through hole screws for most shelves;
For walls that had their outer side visible (the SW and W walls next to the bathroom door) and all the N walls. So, to not see ugly screw holes in these walls I decided to try dowel joinery. Seemed like a good idea at the time. However, made assembly very difficult and a fail in some cases getting the walls and shelves to mate nice and flush and tight. I also used pockets for these walls for the floor braces. The pockets are all hidden and that part worked out pretty good;
Finish the pieces before assembly in the garage with the HVLP sprayer. This turned out to be a very good decision since the HVLP is much faster, easier and can be done in the garage (in my spray booth!). Touch up with a brush as necessary once in the closet turned out fine too.

Materials

After making the cut list I did the board layouts to get the size and quantity of material as well as the cuts needed. Here is an example of layouts of three of the plywood sheets:

Plywood: Menards Pine ACX 4x8 Qty 13
Solid Pine: Menards 1x6-8' Qty 6
Furniture: IKEA TARVA Dresser Qty 1
Various: Screws, Pocket screws, Dowels, Closet rods and holders, Glue, Wood Putty
Finish: 1 Gal Zinsser Primer, 2 Gals Benjamin Moore Custom Satin Color, 1 Gal Sherwin Williams wall paint

New Tools

Every new project, of course, needs at least one new tool! To create a smooth paint finish (no brush or roller marks) and because of the volume of wood to finish I invested in a Wagner HVLP Sprayer. I also bought some nice square clamps from Rockler that I used a lot in the build.

Tarva Dresser

This was a good find. It is solid Pine sturdy and well built. I don't think I could have built one for less and would have been it's own project. I had it delivered so all I had to do was build it. Easy!

Bucking the Plywood

I set up the canopy and moved my work bench and table into the area to try to cut down on dust in the rest of the garage and mainly to have a spray booth when I am ready to paint.

This first milling was to buck the plywood for managable pieces to cut later on the table saw. However the East wall modules were to big to handle on my small table saw even if I had bucked them. The walls are 22 1/8" x 82" and the shelves are 22 1/8 x 31 1/4 so I had to cut the finished widths and lengths for all those pieces with the circular saw. I did a nice job on all the walls making them perfect size and square but, had a few shelves that were out of square so, it took me a long time to get them back to square. Maybe my next tool is a better circular saw guide!

Everything else went according to plan as I worked my way through 13 sheets of plywood

Levelers

I was concerned with squareness and levelness of the closet walls and floor so, anticipating I may need to make some adjustments, I added levelers to the bottom of all the walls just in case I needed them. The Dowel Mate jig I bought for doing the dowels for some of the shelves was the perfect tool to get the leveler holes perfectly in the center. Turns out, I did not need a single leveler during install so, for my closet no levelers. If it turns out I need them, I can add them as necessary.

Fabrication

This is the fun part! I fabricated all the walls, shelves and braces to final length with a few exceptions. The last East module, the SW module and the North Outer modules all had to be made to perfect width once the other modules were in place to fit the wall perfectly. So, I bucked the shelves for those sections for later final cutting. This created lots of extra work re-cutting later so, when I do my closet design I am going to avoid requiring these exact fit modules (already have design idea to avoid them).

All ripping and most cross cutting was done on the table saw (to big to cross cut with my miter saw). Lot's of pieces!

18 walls, 50 shelves and 31 braces!

Trim

Once I had all the plywood cut, I fabricated the trim pieces to give a nice edge to any exposed plywood. Most i cut to 1" to give a 1/4" extra. For the walls this allowed easier installation and for the shelves it gave a bulkier look. Again, some I had to just buck for final cut later. Again, I am not doing this double work next time!

With all 68 trim pieces cut I glued and brad nailed them to the plywood and filled the holes with wood putty.

Pocket Holes

I cut the pocket holes using my Kreg Jig which makes it really easy. Since I have not use pocket holes much in the past I did a test assembly with the inner North module before repeating it on all the other modules.

Dowels

It essential to use the clever Dowel Mate jig but it is still a tedious process. I used dowels for one of the SW walls, one of the W walls and all of the North walls as these all are walls where you can see the outer side of the wall. Cutting the holes into the shelves was fun. Then you have to carefully mark the location each shelf on the wall and using of the shelf and the dowel jig cut the holes in the walls to match. Since placement of the dowels in the shelves is not exact on every shelf you now have to label the shelves and walls to match them up during assembly. As I built these I did alot of test fitting to be sure assembly would go smooth. I will think twice about using so many dowels on any future projects.

Sanding - Priming - Sanding

The plywood I bought is sanded on the A side which is the side I will use for the most visible surface of each piece. Prepping the boards I filled holes, trim/ply gaps and some of the rougher C side defects. Then sanded everything with 180 grit sandpaper with my orbital sander.

Once sanded I experimented with the HVLP sprayer and settled with the primer thinned by 15%, max air flow and 5-6 for the flow control.

With some practice and the right settings the HVLP sprayer works great. You have good control of laying down the correct amount of paint, and you get a smooth surface with no brush or roller marks. It is probably 10 times faster than a brush and 5 times faster than a roller!

Then back to the sander! Sanded all the primed boards with 220 Grit and a light touch.

Paint - Sand - Paint

Kathryn picked out an excellent paint color for the closet. Using the HVLP with the paint thinned by 10%, max air flow and 3-4 for the flow control. I put the first coat on and again sanded everything with 220 grit and a light touch. Then the final coat of paint!

While I was finishing up the painting, Kathryn cleared out her closet, we took down all the existing shelved and rods and Kathryn painted the walls. Thanks! Ready for assembly and install!

Assembly and Install

I used the sitting room for the assembly area just outside the closet. First built the three standard East Modules, the Inside North Module and the two West modules. Rather challenging handling these big pieces but, things went together well and I made sure everything was square, level and tight. As mentioned before the modules that I used dowels on were difficult and I couldn't close the seems for all the shelves.

Once I got the standard modules installed I took extra care in measuring fthe "custom" North outer modules, East custom module and Southwest to exactly fit the space. With those measurements I cut the shelves in those modules to exact length and assembled those modules. The North and SouthWest modules cut to fit were perfect! The East module was really tight. At first I thought I would have to trim it down but, I jammed it in place! Turned out not needing to utilize any of the levelers. The room is really square, plumb and level.

The end is in sight! With all the module and dresser installed I completed the install by cutting the top shelves to length and installing.

With everything installed I filled any gaps with wood putty and then touched up the paint with a brush.

Finally I made a new simple frame for the attic entrance and cut three small wall trim pieces to fit and brad nailed them in place. DONE!

The Reveal

This was a big project with some new skills learned. It took longer than I had expected but I am really happy with the result. AND my customer, Kathryn, is happy!