DIY walk in wardrobe

[Sunisshining12]

OH is good very good DIY..thinking of fitting a walk in wardrobe/dressing room in our spare box room (which is basically an overflow room of all our clothes, shoes & general junk)

Thinking of using IKEA in either black or white. Which would you go for?

Any other places to buy asides from IKEA? Things to think about? Must haves? I’d say £2-£3k is our max budget. OH will fit it all. Tia

Anyone?!

We used Ikea Pax for the innards of our wardrobes - carcasses, drawers, shelves, lights etc. It works very well. We didn’t get doors as we got a joiner to make doors and filler panels and make it look built in.

The drawers are very good, the wire baskets not so good. But if you are having doors then remember you can’t have a drawer where the door hinges are going to go.

Ikea have an online Pax planner which is really useful, once you have finished it will put all the pieces into a web order basket for you.

Yep I second Ikea PAX, we struggled a bit with the online planner but took the room dimensions to store and they planned it for us and ordered all the stuff, ended up with 22 boxes being delievered because everything comes packaged individually 🙈 We didn't go with doors decided on open plan .

....oh and to answer your question i would go with white, blacks terrible for showing up dust!

We used a mix of Ikea Algot and upcycled furniture to make an improvised kind-of-walk-in wardrobe in a cupboard with a sloping ceiling. The Algot system is very flexible and the Ikea website has a planner where you can lay out exactly what you need and play around with different drawer/hanging options.

This is an example Algot walk-in wardrobe from someone who had more space

If you Google Ikea Pax Hack walk in closet you'll get lots of results (mainly american) but some are gorgeous - like this

Sliding wardrobe world has a range of interiors that fit in a frame - drawers, hanging rails, shoe racks, shelves etc. Frame has holes so you can position them where you want

We've just finished ours in Ikea pax stuff. It's a bit flimsy but if you're good with DIY and don't make too many mistakes / move it too much then it's brilliant value compared to the alternatives. And the options for internal fittings are ace. Ours was £1200 for all the wardrobes and trimmings.

We were going to go for open but a few people I know with them said everything gets really dusty and also looks untidy really really quickly. So we went with doors and a more dressing room type vibe.

Just make the floor flat before using PAX. They don't like walls and floors not being square to start. There is some adjustment, but much better to sort the floor out first.

I can vouch for what @Rollercoaster1920 said from experience.

When I say it's okay as long as you don't handle it too much - it's because we did do a lot of handling in the adjustments as we padded out the floor. We've got some damage to the carcass but barely noticeable, luckily.

Great, glad to hear Ikea are worth exploring! We don’t want any doors - does that make much difference?

We havent put doors on ours, individual units are bolted together and to the wall so it feels sturdy.
I think some of the inserts (drawers, shelves) we couldnt have had if we'd put the doors on.
Just have to make sure you put things back properly because its always on show!

If you don't have any doors it will save you money as the doors and hinges are priced and sold separately. It will also give you more layout flexibility as you have more choice as to where to position fittings when you don't have to consider hinge placement.

ours is ikea but we used tall kitchen doors rather than the pax ones. It looks good.

@HasaDigaEebowai

ours is ikea but we used tall kitchen doors rather than the pax ones. It looks good.

That’s interesting! Do you have any photos please?

So jealous OP, it’s one of my dreams!! What’s your interior design vibe?

I would say check what Habitat and Heals have (maybe in the sales), with an eye to finding some really luxurious finishing touches? If you live in London I’d walk Tottenham Court Road.

If you use ikea for a base, you can make it look a lot more expensive with luxury lighting, changing out the door handles, and a few showstopper pieces (chair? Mirror? Dressing table?). If you pick a really strong look and carry it through, it will be stunning.

I would consider using ikea furniture in white, building a whole integrated room, then paint it a gorgeous luxurious colour from F&B. A whole wall of mirror, really luxury flooring.

Maybe try thinking of a really sexy hotel you like, and basing the style off that?

“Rosewood Hotel Holborn bathroom” google image that, the first few results with dark walls 😍. That would be my dream dressing room vibe—sort of sexy, theatrical Art Deco. If you can get the sexy mirrors and sultry lighting 😍.

Dalloway Terrace Coral Room 😍

Or there’s lots of fabulous 1950s insp, like Fitz’s cocktail bar or the Dalloway terrace.

Oh and Anthropologie also do fabulous accessories!

I would say lean in to the smallness of the space, black lacquer, dark walls, loads of mirrors, sultry lights, maybe a dark ceiling could look amazing?

The previous poster’s ikea hack rec is amazing: www.ikeahackers.net/2019/01/walk-in-closet-ikea-pax-hack.html

I’ve also seen ones where they’ve wallpapers parts of the doors, etc and they look amazing!

This is mine during construction. We put coving along the top and have deep shagpile carpet in there. It's worked really well.

This was using ikea kitchen parts not the pax system.

@HasaDigaEebowai

This is mine during construction. We put coving along the top and have deep shagpile carpet in there. It's worked really well.

@HasaDigaEebowai - wow, that looks nothing like IKEA! It’s gorgeous! How did you put this together? Do you have any photos or details of what parts you used? Would like to do something on a small scale for my DD room.

I really love glam, black & gold (I know not to everyone’s taste) but cant really get away with it anywhere in our very neutral house.

Would it be a bad idea to go with this just for the dressing room? I’ve tried looking on Pinterest for Ikea hacks in black & gold but can’t find any! Tia

We actually reused the main wardrobe carcasses down both sides of the room (the cupboards are in a U shape). They were previously in our bedroom and the doors had to go but the frames were fine to reuse. DH literally screwed them together and we used ikea doors and hinges.

We then used ikea cover/deco panels to make the plinths at the top. The drawer/cupboard combos at the end are full ikea kitchen units. Handles are Graham and Brown. We added ikea moulding at the bottom of the wardrobes and coving at the top.

We have lots of nice features like a pull out ironing board and we used ikea lighting inside so that each cupboard has an internal light that comes on when you open the door.

Its a nice bright room since we have the big skylight and a large window.

In the centre of the space I have a large velvet ottoman bench. The space was previously a very small box room and a corridor.

@HasaDigaEebowai - it looks very high end. You’ve done a great job. Did you have to paint the wardrobe doors to match the kitchen doors/drawers - or did they already all come that colour?

Did you use kitchen carcasses & drawers on the end, and the rest all wardrobe?

Do you have any more photos :-)