[laurie]

There's more room than I thought there would be between the closet front and the side of the bed. There would be 52". But, we only have a queen size bed. Oh how I wish we had a king size. The queen size bed fits perfectly between the two windows, so I'm thinking we'll have to live with that.

Not sure of the color palette yet. Our plans are for hardwood flooring, probably in a medium to darker tone. I bought paint last year for the bedroom that I never used. It's Sherwin Williams' "Watery" and it's a pale blue/green. I may use that, or I may just start from scratch. I'm thinking I should find the new bedding I want first, and then go from there. After painting my living room a sage green last year, I'm already sick of it. I think I have colorphobia. I'm drawn to a neutral palette with just a splash of color here and there. I might be better off sticking with cream's, beige's, brown's, and throwing in a touch of color ......like the pale blue/green, or a burnt orange/red.

As much as I like white, I guess I'm not envisioning white closets in a warm, contemporary/asian look. Am I wrong on that? So, I thought the PAX HAKADAL being a lighter wood would offset the darker flooring. As far as the FEVIK doors, do the inside of the hinged doors have stiles also? Could I buy the frosted window film and apply? Would that conceal the appearance of the clothing and drawers?

Definitely want a low profile bed, perhaps use the IKEA fabric to cover a rectangular canvas board for art above, and low profile night stands because our windows are lower to the floor. I love drapery, but I'm afraid to put too heavy a drape on the 2 windows, so I was thinking bamboo shades or some type of sheer "gauze" type material. Although I want complete privacy, and I don't think you can get bamboo shades lined.

This would be much easier if I had an unlimited source of income and someone who could just tell me what my style is. So many times I've bought things just to find that I don't really like them afterall.

[laurie]

Update here.

We've decided in order to cut costs, we are going to rip out that small extra closet and run the new closet along the entire wall and into that small closet area.

Since we will be framing in the new closet, I'm afraid over 15 ft. of inexpensive white bi-fold doors is going to be pretty over-powering in our smallish bedroom. Any ideas for doors on a moderate budget? I LOVE wood-frame doors with frosted glass inserts, but I'm sure that option would be COSTLY.

Also, do you think it would be cost-efficient making the long, 5 hr. trip to IKEA to purchase items for the interior? I love PAX, but I also like the Stolmen. Any recommendations?

We do have a man locally who does superb custom woodworking that could build drawer units. However, he works at $30/hr. Based upon this information compared to the cost of the IKEA items + gas, which do you think would be the more economical option?

[laurie]

I was googling closet door information the other day to get ideas for closet doors instead of having 15'+ of white bi-fold doors. I came across a post in a forum about someone local getting doors with frosted glass inserts from HD for a fraction of the retail cost of over $350 for a 5ft. closet. I let my fingers do the walking and contacted MANY stores in the St. Louis/Illinois and outlying areas and found (4) of the same kind:

AURA™ Home Design

Got them each for $82.50 + tax!!!!!

We had to, of course, spend 5 hours driving all over creation to get them, but saving over $1,000 wasn't a bad day!!!!!

The glass doesn't look white like that, or quite that opaque. It looks to me that you may see some hint that there is something behind the doors, but not define what it is. The glass is actually beautiful.

We only needed (3) sets for the closet, but we bought an extra set thinking we could perhaps make them into pocket doors entering the new bathroom.

The only thing I don't like is that they're sliding doors. But, there wouldn't be enough room to open a 30" door up all the way by the nightstand. So, does anyone know about this product:

Johnson Hardware® FOLDING DOOR HARDWARE

Does anyone think that this could be done and look alright to utilize something like this mounted on the exterior of the closet? (Not the interior because as the door pivots, half of the 30" door would pivot to the interior of the closet and there wouldn't be room).

The sliding doors wouldn't be too bad for just the hanging clothes, but we want to put drawers inside and I'd want full access.

[RubrikGreen]

We have sliding doors, and drawers inside the closets.

You can do both... but must make sure the drawer sits inside the door width - overlap w/other door. IF the drawer is less than this, you have full access when closet door is fully open. (our doors overlap about 3" when both are closed)

[laurie]

Does it bother you at all having to slide the doors back-n-forth to get everything you need? I worried about that getting old after awhile.

[RubrikGreen]

No, not at all. Assuming the doors slide smoothly, it's just part of the routine. You don't necessarily have to open the door all the way all of the time, either - once you know the layout of your closet, you can open the door just enough.

Our guest room closet has a triple-section sliding door - L and R doors on the back track, and a center section (with L & R pulls) on the front rail. This is both nicer and not-so-nice, depending.

The PAX doors I've played w/at IKEA seem to roll really well, and I don't think it'd be very tiresome over time.

We inherited the closet 'system' when we bought the house, and they were tailored for the old owners. Given my druthers, I'd've set things up so the drawers were more centered in the door openings (drawers currently are more toward center) and had hanging space in the overlap area. Reason: in that 3-4" one can easily reach something hanging, and not worry about having to have the closet door fully open so the drawer will pull out completely.