How to Make a Custom Organizer for a Child's Closet, Continued

6. Create shelves:

• Next they had to make the shelves to go into the frames. Ron used what is called medium density fiberboard often called MDF for the shelves. The reason he selected this material was because when it is cut, the edges are free of voids and holes making a very clean and solid shelf.

• But like most shelves, this material has a tendency to bend or deflect slightly over time. To prevent this, they added to the front edge what Ron calls a stiffener or cleat.

• On the end of this cleat, they added a little hook, which was designed to fit over the copper pipe on the ends. This hook was actually a half hole that was created by clamping two cleats together and drilling a pipe sized hole right where the two pieces came together.

• They glued the ledgers or stiffeners onto the shelf, flipped the shelf over, drilled a small pilot hole and then nailed the cleat in place. The nails held the stiffener until the glue dried.

7. Hanging bar:

• One section of the organizer called for a hanging bar. They made the brackets for the bar by first drilling a 1 5/8 inch hole in the center of a piece of 1 x 3.

• The hanging rod was made form 1 ½ inch copper pipe, which was cut to length using a hack saw. The pipe was inserted into the holes in the brackets and the brackets were screwed onto the frame.

• Bill and Ron moved the frames into the closet and connected them together with screws.

• Jennie helped Ron position the adjustable shelves just the way she wanted them, and the new closet organizer was finally complete.