Bedroom Closet Part 1: Ginger Demolition

The gentleman who built our home had an eye for open spaces. The two upstairs bedrooms are huge, with windows all around and cathedral ceilings. However, his attention to closed spaces, particularly closets, left something to be desired. One forty-two inch closet with a single bar and upper shelf in the master bedroom just doesn't cut it these days. So Sara and I have decided to convert some of the rolling plains of floor space into a closet that will better accommodate our needs (and probably anyone who might own the joint after us).

Here's a shot of the east end of our bedroom before the necessary disruption has begun. Note the presence of dressers and a wardrobe necessary to supplement the "closet" we already have:

We designed a closet that will stretch as far as possible along the wall, leaving just enough room for the window on one end and the door to open on the other. Here's the scheme, with masking tape marking the footprint of the finished closet:

Now it's par for the course that our plans require some, well, creativity in order to come to fulfillment. There's bound to be much creativity in store that I can't foresee, but the first element requiring improvisation is the fact that the ends of the closet we want don't line up with the existing studs in the wall. Therefore, I needed to put in cripples to which to attach the walls of the closet.

(Sidebar: As I described my plans to my brother over the phone (he is doomed to help out with this project), he noted that most people would not bother to find studs at all, but would just slap up a closet against the existing drywall. I guess this makes me anal: the fact that I want to anchor the closet directly against the frame of the house. My excuse is that I'm planning on storing things above the closet, so it needs to be sturdy. But I suspect I'm really just being anal. C'est la vie.)

In order to put in cripple studs, I needed to remove drywall in the locations where the closet walls and ceiling will meet the existing wall. This meant cutting out wall board up one side:

and getting a wicked blister on my hand from the utility knife:

Ach! What would a home project be without some sort of injury? I wrapped my hand in a bandanna and continued cutting.

By the way, I couldn't get my hands on a drywall saw easily, so I used the toothed blade on my Leatherman. (Thanks, David!) I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK!

Some sawing over and down, plus a low excision for electric and cable, got me the silhouette of a closet on the wall:

That's the extent of the precision demolition required; the next step is putting in cripple studs.

~ emrys