The Closet of my Dreams: Building a New Algot System

A customized, built-in closet with tons of space for everything a girl could want: this project has been on my wishlist since we bought our house, but time and money were always the factor. I decided months ago that my tax return money would be going to this beauty, if I could find a cost-effective way to do it.

Today’s post is all about the building and installing of this wonderful, wonderful system. I do have plans to paint and glam up the space a bit, but those will be for a later day!

The specs on this space:

This room is long and skinny (15’ by 7’)…and tough to photograph. The master bedroom actually has three closets—two standard size closets on each side of the little hall that leads to the master bath, and then this large walk-in. The big closet is all mine. When we moved in, all the closets had those standard Rubbermaid wire shelves. This is fine in areas like the pantry or the hall closets, but for my walk-in master, I wanted something more organized and a little more upscale.

The project:

We’ll file this one under weekend project, although it could be a slightly more extensive weekend project, especially if you’re like me and can only work on it during certain hours. (Like when the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied in the playroom.) It is absolutely a two-person project, with bonus points if one of those people is good at finding studs and exact measurements. (Rob did that part for me, and deserves all the credit for taking care of the more tedious details!)

Total cost:

Under $350 for the entire closet system. And that’s including the Skubb hanging storage units, so I can plan out my outfits for the week. (The other boxes and containers were things I already had, but most are also Ikea and very affordable!)

For before and after pics, plus the entire process, read on!

Before: Boring shelves and lots of wasted space.

Decision time:

Despite my constant attempts to pare down, I have a lot of clothes, shoes, and accessories, and I wanted one central place where I could house all of it. The Rubbermaid racks hung along the back long wall as well as the adjacent shorter wall. The size of the closet itself provided a lot of hanging space, but there was a lot of wasted space and 100% hanging wasn’t very effective for storage. I had a table in the corner of the closet with all my jewelry and nail polish. It didn’t really work with the room, but I wanted all that stuff easily accessible as I was getting dressed. And I had a dresser out in the bedroom, which held socks and undies and any folded items which didn’t really have a place in the closet. I wanted to be able to keep everything in the closet, and have it be an effective space.

I had been eying the Pax system from Ikea for more than a year, and I was pretty sure that was the direction I was going to go. When I started taking measurements for the room, I realized that the Pax system, which resembles a full built-in, was quite deep and was going to take up a lot of floor space and make my good-sized closet seem less spacious. For the price I was looking to pay ($400-$500), I was only going to be able to do about 2/3 of the long wall in my closet—and it left me no solution for my shoes. I started looking into other options, and stumbled upon Ikea’s “little sister” closet system, the Algot.

The Algot is completely customizable, just like the Pax, but because of its less-intruding use of space, it works better for smaller places (or for maximizing the space inside a larger spot). It has a little bit more of an open-concept feel, and it’s super easy to change around the components inside if you decide you’d rather have a different layout. It is also by far the most affordable option out there in its category. I spent way less than I would have on a Pax, and I still got an extensive system that stores everything I need, plus gave me a shoe/accessory wall! Installation did take awhile and involved a tiny bit of trial and error, but overall the process was very simple. So far, I am a huge fan and highly recommend the Algot.

So here’s what we did:

Before you begin:
You are going to have to have a pretty good idea about your new closet layout and functionality. I worked in retail for several years and frequently worked floor sets. This system is very similar to what they use in stores: it’s vertical strips mounted into the wall studs, then brackets which hook into the mounts, and all your pieces such as shelves, rods, and drawers clip into the brackets. I drew out a sketch of what I needed from my closet, in terms of columns.

My sweet sketches of what I planned to do and some cost estimates. Yes, I use an old Lilly agenda for note-taking!

Each column is roughly 25” wide, the width between your studs. To cover the entire long wall of my closet, I needed five sections, and for the shoe wall, I used two. This meant I needed nine wall mounts total, plus all the shelves, brackets, rods, and extras for the inside. Currently, Ikea does not offer an Algot planner online, so your drawing will need to be pretty detailed so you can count exactly what you need before you shop. I ended up needing about 50 brackets and 30 shelves, so my advice is to plan and count carefully. Depending on how big your system is, there are a LOT of parts that can go into it and it can be easy to miss a piece if you’re not totally sure what you’re doing.

Step 1: Clear out the closet.

I dumped everything on my bed and the floor surrounding it. Yikes. I left everything on hangers to make for easy placement later.

Step 2: Take down all the old cheapo racks.

Silly me, I thought this would be the easy part. Turns out all these little mounts in the drywall are actually kind of a pain to get out. It came down to us basically yanking them out of the wall. There was no way around it, and we were going to end up with little holes in the wall no matter what we did. Ugh. So then the next step involved patching the wall. The logical next step would be to paint over it once dry, so you could have a normal looking wall and not a patchy mess. But we were on a time crunch (ie, I was anxious to get my closet up and get all my clothes off the bed) so we’ll be revisiting this step the next afternoon we have some free time.

Step 3: Find your studs, and decide how far above the floor/baseboards you’d like your wall mounts to hang.

These wall mounts are about 77” long. I measured about 2.5” above the baseboards, and that’s where the bottom of the mount begins. We marked our studs, and then we had a close idea of where the frames would be mounted.

Step 4: Start screwing in your mounts.

This is where the careful planning and the trial and error comes in. Because of the pieces that connect into the system, like the shelves, if one of the wall mounts is off by even a tiny bit, the pieces won’t fit in. So before we screwed in the entire mount, we used just one screw in each to secure them into the studs. We then placed brackets into the bottom slats, and started inserting shelves into those bottom brackets, to make sure each wall mount was properly spaced from the next. Since we were building the wall starting with the stud on the far right side of the wall, we worked from right to left, making sure the bottoms were spaced first. When we were sure they were, we moved to the top, using the same process to make sure all the mounts were parallel and properly aligned. We fully secured the mounts before putting any of the pieces into the system.

This is how the brackets look when they're secured in the mounts.

Left: The shelf is latched into one of the brackets. Right: Oops, but it doesn't fit in the other side. Time to move the wall mount over a bit and try again.

Step 5: Build out your wall.

If you have your system drawn out ahead of time, like I did, this part is super easy. It took me a few tries to figure out how the brackets secure in the wall mounts, and they can be a bit tough to move. Once I got a feel for the brackets, it was very easy to place everything in order to recreate my picture.

Working from the bottom up proves the easiest method.

Step 6: Put all your clothes and accessories in place.

This was the fun part. It went pretty quickly since everything was already hung and ready to go back in.

We placed the clothing wall in its entirety before beginning on the shoe and accessory wall.

Step 7: Enjoy your beautiful custom closet!

I still can’t believe it’s installed, and I paid so little for it! It’s everything I needed it to be for now, and it’ll be super easy to update down the road, if I decide I need more. And since I moved the contents of my dresser to the inside of my closet, I was able to get the dresser out of my room and put it in Robby’s room, thus solving two problems. Baby boy now has additional storage in his room, and I have easier access to the things I use every day. (Also, only one place to put my laundry away, which sounds so small but is actually a huge time and patience saver.)

No, Ikea did not pay me to say any of this, nor did they supply me with any of this. (Although I wouldn’t complain if they were to decide to do that.) These opinions are entirely my own. I just have a crazy love for all things Ikea.

Seriously, if you’re looking to redo a closet and don’t want to pay for some of the more pricey systems, consider the Algot. It was much cheaper and easier than some systems out there, and I think it looks quite nice. It's going to be gorgeous once I get it painted and completely organized!

Thanks for reading!

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