Tiny Tuesday: Reclaim a closet door

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I like to paint — especially murals. Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a collection of paint for these projects, and up to this point, I’d been storing it in boxes and plastic tubs on shelves in the closet. That’s not a bad approach, but it’s hard to find things when you’re looking down at the bottles from the top.

A few months ago, somebody on Pinterest suggested mounting IKEA spice racks to the back of a closet door and using them to store art supplies. It looked nice, but those little spice racks are pretty pricey, and with a hollow-core closet door, I’d have to use special hardware to mount all of them — an expensive and time-consuming proposition.

I considered scrounging up some cheap boards from the scrap-lumber bins at Menards and building a paint rack from scratch, but while I was looking for something else one day at Target, I discovered this little over-the-door wire pantry rack and sort of filed it away in the back of my mind.

The other night, I had some time on my hands and a few bucks to spare, so I bought one and installed it on the back of the closet door.

It wasn’t quite the panacea the instructions promised (I had to use a few extra screws to anchor it, and it took some dinking around with a pair of pliers to get the nuts and bolts at the top tightened properly), but it still came together fairly easily and took maybe half an hour to assemble and install. For $37, I can’t really complain.

I love being able to see my inventory at a glance.

I like the way it allowed me to capitalize on the unused space behind the door. I can’t set anything at the front of the closet, because I don’t want to block the shelves or make my storage drawers inaccessible. A door-mounted unit that swings out of the way as soon as I open the door is a handy way to gain a few more feet of shelf space without sacrificing accessibility.

If you buy one of these, I’d recommend picking up a package of flat-head sheet-metal screws to reinforce the vertical supports and keep them lying neatly against the door.

Emily

P.S.: As always, nobody paid me for this post or gave me any free stuff to review. Links are provided for convenience.