If you have been following my page for a while this probably won’t be a big surprise. But for anyone who doesn’t know me yet…. I am a total neat freak! I like everything tidy and in a proper place. Earlier this year when we moved from North Carolina to Texas I organized my closet using the same system I had in my last bedroom. (((Check it out here on my “Studio Tour” post.))) The challenge was that I had outgrown my system and I was left with a yarn avalanche anytime I tried to get something down.
I don’t know about you, but I just can’t create in a disastrous mess!
There was a lot of group brainstorming, tons of measuring, endless Pinterest scrolling, and tons of time spent in the IKEA app. We finally made a plan!
Off to IKEA I went with my mom! We went with an organized shopping list and 30 minutes before closing to avoid people – COVID. Ugh! IKEA is pretty much my favorite store. Clean-looking storage solutions make my heart skip a beat! We bought three PAX units, shelves, drawers, and a peg board system (more on that later!)
The next step was to empty my closet. YIKES! I purged about four garbage bags full of yarn from way back in my early days of crocheting. My style and fiber favorites have changed, so I gave them away to people who would put them to good use. We put all of my yarn into laundry baskets and bins and lined it all up in the hallway and our loft.
Then I started sorting the baskets by color so that I could make my yarn wall a ROY G. BIV wall. My little brother didn’t know about ROY G. BIV, but it is the abbreviation for the colors of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Although I didn’t make a pile for indigo yarn. I just had a blue pile and a purple pile. I also made a pile for neutrals – black, grey, white, and brown – and they are in their own section on the wall.
In the meantime, my dad helped pull the shelving and closet rod that came with the house. We took the closet door off the hinges to open up the spaces a lot more too. My Grammy patched up the holes and painted it. Then my dad hung the pegboards up. When I have shared some sneak peaks of my yarn wall project online I have gotten a lot of questions about it. It is the SKADIS pegboard system from IKEA. These are the boards and these are the hooks I used. They’re amazing!
Once everything was sorted by color I started winding. And winding. And winding. And winding. And I broke a few yarn ball winders in the process. As I finished each color I would put it up on the wall.
I am on the short side and my yarn wall is about 96” tall, so I had to develop a system for reaching the top. This looks safe, right?
With the yarn wall almost done it was time to install the PAX units that would be on the opposite side of my closet. Our dining and living room turned into an IKEA assembly line. My mom and brother helped assemble about 20 drawers and then we’d take them upstairs for my dad to install in the units. My whole room is IKEA and I built most of it myself when we moved here, so I am really good at understanding what those little cartoon people in the manual are trying to say!
Once everything was in the closet it was time to organize it all and return the hallway and loft to their normal state. Finally! I bought these really cute chalkboard stickers on Amazon to label each drawer. If I ever want to reorganize I can just erase what is there and re-label it!
Here are some pictures of the finished project!!
I have three PAX units in my closet. There was about 8” of dead space at the end, so my dad put a shelf up for me. On the top I keep my reeds, heddles, and other tall/thin equipment. On the bottom I have my skein winder for Petunia the Spinning Wheel and the papers I use when I wind the warp onto by big loom – Mama Bear. It is literally all from IKEA – the shelf, the paper holders, and even the hook holding up the skein winder!
One of the PAX units is deeper than the other two. I decided to do it that way so that I had one deep enough to hold my rigid heddle loom, my drum carder, and a filing cabinet for important papers.
I am thrilled with the final project and feel so much more organized! It is a definite improvement.
P.S. If you are an IKEA fan too…. I think you will love this funny video!
