Sunset. Acoustic. Pinboard. Wardrobe.

If those four words showed up in a New York Times Connections puzzle, I’m not sure I would ever find the category. But in this case the answer is: Things that replaced my son’s closet. (Yes… I’m on a closet-demoing rampage.)

Skip ahead to read about:

The Constraints	• storage • functionality • aesthetics
The Fix	AKA "After" Pictures!
The Process	• demo & built-ins • painting & acoustic panel install • tying in existing room elements
The Organization	• storing current clothing & in-between sizes

The Constraints

As usual, function » form ! Here were the project requirements, in order of importance:

1. Communal storage needs separation. I already axed our closet and axed my older son’s closet , so our home’s last remaining closet (in this bedroom) needed to store some communal items in addition to my younger son’s things . The current setup was not working.

Skip ahead to see how our new space is organized!

2. Space to showcase kiddo’s artwork since he is so proud of it, and I don’t have the heart to get rid of it.

I love this picture, since their art looks like their two brains on display.

3. Soundproof walls for our neighbors’ sakes.

4. Pick colors that my kiddo loves!

5. Keep painted mountains on the other walls, per the kids’ request.

The Fix

So… out closet → built-in wardrobe! I used Ikea Sektion pantry units and covered them with FeltRight acoustic tiles.

Scroll down to read more about the organization!

But aren’t closets important for resale? It’s okay if we don’t turn a profit on these projects when we sell (in the distant future). Making these changes helps our home work better for our family now and going forward – worth it!

Closet Problems	Wardrobe Solutions
Inaccessible space above and to the sides of openings.	Deeper usable space from wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.
Doors get stuck on the rug and in their frames. Fingers get pinched!	Lighter, overlay cabinet doors with soft-close hinges raised off floor.
Entry door crashes into the closet!	Gained ~4” of floorspace and solved the collision issue!

Acoustic tile panels are sound-dampening and double as pinboards, so we can hang up (and change up!) artistic creations.

Color palette fits our aesthetic. The colors are a little intense, I know. But they’re perfect for my kid (he wanted even more color than this ), and they look cohesive from other parts of our home:

You can read more about our family pictures wall and my wall-mounted linens cabinet.

I fixed up (…and axed the closet from) our older son’s bedroom last year.

And here’s the other end of the hallway looking into our living room.

The Process

Stage 1: Closet demo & wardrobe installation

I hired a local contractor to demo the existing closet, patch the ceiling, walls, and floors, then assemble and install some Ikea pantries with 1/2” poplar spacers to accommodate the swing of cabinet doors + 3/8”-thick acoustic panels.

Stage 2: Painting and acoustic panel installation

Step 1. Prep cabinet frame and doors. I got custom color samples to match the panels, plus Zinsser BIN primer for the wood, Ikea doors and fully-cured plaster walls (I learned my lesson from painting fresh plaster too soon…). It took a few weekends– sanding, priming, two coats of paint, and sealing the cabinet frames and door edges with polyurethane.

Step 2. Paint wall. I paneled the window wall too so we could see the colors from the hallway… which meant painting underneath so gaps around tiles/windows wouldn’t show.

Step 3. Install panels. Panels were super easy to cut with box cutters and hang using the provided (renter-friendly!) adhesive strips. I added construction adhesive on the laminate doors for extra security.

Step 4. Fill baseboard gap with a flexi caulk strip, since I suspect my kiddo would have tried to stuff cards and toys in there otherwise…

Stage 3: Tying in the other walls

My husband and I free-hand painted these mountains ~5 years ago by gradually mixing in larger and larger amounts of BM Hemlock with BM Ice Mist (the existing wall color) as we moved from the background to foreground.

The kids didn’t want to cover them up, so I came up with three ways to try and tie the room together.

Step 1. Sunset color palette. I arranged the selected colors so that they looked like a sunset behind a mountain range.

Step 2. Fabric mountain range. To soften the abrupt transition from the mountains to the “sunset”, I matched paint swatches to batik cotton fabric options at the Fabric Corner in Arlington. I cut the fabric into mountain shapes, edge-sealed to prevent fraying, and attached with clear push pins.

Thoughts? I might change this up…

Step 3. Glow-in-the-dark stars. I added stars around the whole room, above the mountains on the walls and to the acoustic panels (onto these flat-head push pins to stick).

The sun is on the ceiling light with the planets ordered around it.

Organization

I’ve saved the best for last ! We finally have super accessible and intentional storage for communal items (behind less-convenient doors 1, 4, 5) & personal items (behind easy-to-access door 2 and lower half of 3), with room to grow:

Clothes currently in rotation. Our son knows exactly which cabinets are his, and these 24” wire mesh drawers make it easy for him to access everything and get dressed independently.

I adapted the 3D-printed label frames that I originally designed for our pantry bin project and attached them with twist ties.

In-between size storage. We get a lot of hand-me-downs, so I needed a spot to store in-between clothes sizes that could be easily accessed when needed.

I also designed 3D-printed cloth bin frames and attached them with brass fasteners that I had leftover from my utility room project.

Seasonal rotation. I fill the “next size up” bins for both boys twice yearly (+ / +), so that I know where to go for extras as soon as they’re needed instead of scrambling in the moment and/or unnecessarily buying new!

Cost

Our biggest expense was the custom wardrobe for better storage. Luckily, that’ll stay even if the room style changes later.

Most importantly… we have one happy boy!

Shilpa Kobren is the Associate Director of Rare Disease Analysis at Harvard Medical School where she focuses on analyzing genomic sequencing data with patient clinical information to derive insights into human diseases. Shilpa lives in an 1890s urban apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and two energetic toddlers. She retains her sense of peace amid the chaos by creating and iteratively improving systems that optimize daily efficiency in her family's constrained living space.