sliding closet door organizers

2 years ago

The whole house was remodeled and while the hardwood guys were working I set out building these closet cubbies thinking I’d center them and put rods on either side to hang clothes from. However, I’m realizing a fairly big issue before I’ve completed assembly.

This is in a hallway leading to the MBR and has another similar closet alongside it in the hallway. The closets have sliding doors two of them so each so the cubbies would be covered if you slid the doors from either directio. Any ideas on what I can do instead to fix this?

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Comments (10)

anj_p
2 years ago
Move the cubbies over...? Or replace your sliding doors with bifold.
Nick Baratta
Original Author
2 years ago
I thought about moving cubbies over but there made from 3/4 MDF and I’m not sure they can support the weight of a 5 Ft closet rod. I’m concerned it would tear the mounting bracket off the cubby?
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Lyndee Lee
2 years ago
Three slider doors instead of two would allow less total access width but you could have open access to the cubbies by sliding the center door to either side.
kandrewspa
2 years ago
The easy answer is bifold doors instead of sliding doors. If for some reason you can't do that, you will have to move the shelves over. Are you building your own closet system or using something like Closet Maid? My husband (a retired engineer) just built ours from Closet Maid from Lowes and said the limit on rod length is what they include with the system. If you're putting your own together he said he thought you could use a five foot rod anchored in MDF on one side. He said you want to use screws that are as long as possible without breaking through to the other side and add an extra screw or two if you can on the bracket.
Nick Baratta
Original Author
2 years ago
From a cost perspective changing to 3 doors or bi fold isn’t an option currently. I built these myself so any options are available as far as adjustments as I haven’t bought anything for the closet rods.

I was about to until I realized my issue with the cubbies.

That’s kind of my concern a screw going in roughly the full 3/4” wouldn’t be able to hold a heavy duty rod on the MDF side
Lyndee Lee
2 years ago
How about putting the rod into a hole in the mdf cubby? Instead of anchoring one closet rod end bracket to the outside of the cubby, use a hole with a backer board in the organizer or a pin in the closet rod to keep it from going too far. The other end would be the regular open top bracket attahed to a wall stud.
kandrewspa
2 years ago
3/4" MDF is actually pretty strong. That's what Closet Maid supplies with their systems. I don't know if you want to do pull ups on it, but you should be able to hang clothes on it. They just provide plastic brackets for the rod ends. They attach with two screws. The rods are approximately one inch in diameter. They're not perfectly round, so I can't be more precise than that. They're more ovoid. If you move the shelves over so that they're not covered up, how many feet of rod will you have to use? Couldn't you also do a support in the middle like what is done for curtain rods that span a long distance?
anj_p
2 years ago
Our melamine closet system can span 30" before needing a support. You could do as kandrewspa suggested and just put another support in the middle if you want to push your cubbies all the way to one side. Otherwise the wire shelving stuff gets supported on the back wall as well so you could always do that. Or you could do an Elfa system.
Nick Baratta
Original Author
2 years ago
Part of the problem is there really isn't a good stud near the center of the closet. Originally the plan was to center the cubbies and mount them to the stud at the base and use a toggle bolt above that in the drywall and then let the closet rods give it additional support at the top and middle.

Best reference picture I can give you is the closet is 72" the cubbies are 12 3/4" wide. Coming across there's a stud at 24" and the next is at 48". The doors are 36" wide and compress together some, but i'm not sure of the exact distance as there not currently mounted.
bpath
2 years ago
You could add a board all the way around at the height of the rod, on the side of the cubby. Since it will be attached at many points, it will support a rod mounted at the ends and with a center support.