The Eaves, The Clothes and The Wardrobe

There has been a lot of talk of ‘Narnia’s’ since Mrs. Hinch rose to insta-fame, and her love of a good storage solution is something I can get on board with. There was no way I could live without a decent sized wardrobe at home for two reasons; one, I hate mess. With an ongoing foot injury, I can regularly be heard moaning about having to do an obstacle course to get in and out of our bedroom when it’s untidy. And two? I have SO MANY CLOTHES.

When looking around Number One, I didn’t notice how much the eaves in our bedroom slant, and therefore would impact my clothing storage solution. Do I wish I had thought about storage more while looking around? Certainly. But, I probably would have still bought the house…so, if you find yourself in a similar issue to me, I may have found a near-perfect solution…

You can see the problem with the eaves in our bedroom easily in this post (quickly go and have a look so you can visualise what the heck I’m talking about!). Seen it? Good, now you know it’s almost impossible to have full height wardrobes with hanging space, as the only height available next to the chimney breast and that’s reaaaaally narrow before it too hits a slant.

This was going to be an issue as I couldn’t bare open racking we moved in with any longer. The mess was too much for me, so we brought in a carpenter to give us a quote. He suggested buying something pre-made and boxing it in, to make everything a little bit cheaper which sounded exciting. In fact, this is a great idea for most built-in storage spaces, especially if you get the framing from IKEA and make it look fancy by adding coving etc. It will look like it’s always been there and kind of meld into the background.

Mr. Carpenter-man saw the space and was quick to retract his idea as we simply don’t have the height for most pre-made units. The quote then came to build from scratch and was simply too much. His idea did get me thinking though…how could I hack the space using pre-built furniture…and with price in mind I scoured the Ikea website.

I love Ikea. It’s definitely Marmite though, Steve hates the place. I have to promise a quick sprint round to collect what we need and vegan meatballs, to get him through those big revolving doors. Luckily for him, I also really enjoy the room planner tools online. I make up the big list of things we need and head straight to the warehouse bit to collect the items.

At the time, Ikea had just launched their new modular wardrobe range PLATSA. It’s supposed to be their easiest furniture to put together and it has a planning tool. The tool asked me for width and height dimensions, and I could also put any side angles in. The frames were lower than any of their other wardrobes and to my measurements, a few units would fit the width perfectly - or so I thought**. I added frames, picked out all the interior compartments based on what storage solutions we needed; basket drawers for shoes, a shelf for accessories and plenty of hanging space. I even fell for some super slim, long polished gold handles. All for under £800! A snip at the nearly £4k quote we also received from a well-known wardrobe provider.

Sounds ideal right? But as I mentioned earlier it’s only very-nearly perfect…the down side? There is about a 20cm gap behind the units which eats a chunk out of the floor space. HOWEVER, when you balance value, aesthetic, storage and ease of installation - which I easily did in a day with limited tools but with my best friend to help! I think it’s a winner. What do you reckon?

I’d love to know if you’ve had a problem with storage, simply from having too many clothes like me! Or, from having eaves to deal with. Better still, show me your storage solutions! Send me your instagram below, I can spend my afternoon being nosey and getting some new ideas.

**I was out by 5cm, which mean one unit didn’t fit properly. We thought about taking out the skirting boards to make it work…but in the end I decided to use the spare unit as a bedside table (and bought a second, so everything matches!) and I had a think. It’s taken a while to decide what would work in the 55cm space, but I think I’ve got it! All will be revealed in another post as soon as it’s done! Watch this space.

P.S. As much as I wish this was a paid ad, or even ad-gifted etc etc, it’s not. So hey, Ikea? If you want to collab, let me know - I am a BIG fan!