Ikea Trofast Closet Hack

There’s a reason why January is a national “get organized” month. A new year means a fresh start and getting organized is almost always at the top of everyone’s list. After the holidays our kids’ toy situation is generally out of control. There’s no better time to add some much need storage and organization to a kids’ closet. I’ll be sharing how to make a built-in closet system using the Ikea Trofast storage units.

THE BEFORE

Here is an awfully embarrassing before-shot of the closet. Our plan is to add four Ikea Trofast storage units and make them look built-in. We will also be adding a shelf and clothing rod along the back wall. The combination of using two short units and two tall units seems to be the best configuration for our space and for the 8’ ceiling height.

IKEA SHOPPING LIST

• 2 Tall Ikea Trofast Storage Units
• 2 Short Ikea Trofast Storage Units
• Any combination of Ikea Trofast Storage boxes: Small, Medium, & Large

THE BASE

To start, we are going to build a base for our Trofast storage units to sit on. This way they will sit up high enough to add baseboard trim to the front of the storage units.

Start by removing any existing baseboards or trim. You’ll want the units to sit as flush against the wall as possible. Next, determine the size of your base. Our Trofast units only need to sit 1.5” off the floor to be able to add a 1×6 piece of baseboard trim. This is what our base looks like and we secured it directly to the floor with screws.

ADDING SPACERS

Spacers are basically wood blocks that offset your cabinets from a wall or another cabinet. They are going to help us position our Trofast units so that the appropriate amount of face trim can be added. Think of them as a really large shim. Spacers also provide a surface to attach your face frame/trim.

Our Trofast units will sit flush against the back wall, but we need to add spacers on the left-side wall to offset them so that a 1×2 piece of wood trim will cover the spacer and the cabinet frame. We cut strips of wood and screwed them into the studs in the wall. Our storage units will then get secured to these wood strips/spacers, so it’s important to attach them to a stud.

ATTACHING THE STORAGE UNITS

You can now start attaching the left-side storage units. We stacked the shorter Trofast unit on top of the taller one and fastened them into the wood strips/spacers. We also added the brackets provided by Ikea to secure them to the back wall.

When attaching the right-side storage units, we needed a little more space between the cabinets so that a 1×2 piece of wood trim would cover the cabinet frames. We added more wood strips/spacers, this time they are only about ¼” thick. The spacers are attached with some Power Grab adhesive and the right-side storage units are screwed into the left-side storage units.

ADDING THE FACE FRAME TRIM

Now it’s really starting to come together! The face-framing will give everything that final polished look. Before adding the face frame, I wanted to point out that we added a piece of paneling to the exposed right side. This is totally unnecessary; it’s purely cosmetic to hide the seam between the top and bottom units.

Here is a breakdown of the different trim sizes we used. These will all vary depending on your space and ceiling height. We simply used our finish nailer and construction adhesive to attach all of the face frame/trim pieces.

Finally, it is just a matter of the finishing work— Filling nail holes, caulking seams, and painting. I used a backer rod product in areas that were too large for caulking. As far as painting, I only painted the trim work and left the Trofast units as-is. The Sherwin Williams trim paint I used, in the color Alabaster, was a close match to the storage units.

THE FINAL RESULTS

It is such a breath of fresh air to walk into our kids’ closets now and… well… actually be able to walk in them without stepping on something, haha! The Ikea Trofast storage units were definitely designed with kids in mind. The bins are easy to move around if they want to play with something and then they can easily be put back. There’s ample storage space in some of the top bins for linens, seasonal clothing, and all the things you don’t need to access on a regular basis. These storage units have added some much needed storage and organization to our lives.

We basically just copy and pasted everything into our other son’s closet. There were some slanted ceilings to work around in here, but everything is exactly the same, just a different closet.

How would you use this Ikea Trofast closet hack? Kids closet? Craft closet? Playroom built-ins? Garden shed? Garage?

SOURCES

2 Tall Ikea Trofast Storage Units | 2 Short Ikea Trofast Storage Units | Ikea Trofast Storage boxes: Small, Medium, & Large | Small gray storage bins | Large gray storage bins | Gray hampers | Gray rug | Blue rug | Fur rug

*This post contains affiliate links*