Ask anybody who knows me... I am most definitely not into clothes.

But I do want to wear nice clothes, so I save my money all year long and purchase everything on Black Friday. This is essentially doubling my buying power, even though any summer clothes I get will be "last year's models" by the time I end up wearing them. Oh well, because: affordable clothes. Which I hate shopping for. And the only thing I hate more than shopping for clothes? Finding a way to organize them in my closet.

When I moved into my new home one of the first things I looked at was the closets. Since the place was built in 1997, I was hoping it was "modern" enough to have smart closet spaces. But it didn't. Same old rod with a shelf on it that I had in my last place. This means all my shirts will end up scattered around while my suits hang in the corner and all my jeans get stacked on the shelf. Again.

Such a waste of space.

So I looked into some of those "closet organizer" websites where you can custom design exactly what you need. For me, this is rather simple...

• A central shelving unit to organize my growing collection of denim.
• Separated spaces for my shirts and suits.
• Space for my dirty clothes hampers, which I am tired of tripping on.

This ends up looking something like this...

There are several problems here...

• I'd have to toss out the rod on the bottom right to make room for the hampers.
• The shelves are those wimpy "peg & hole" kind, which I hate. I am not even sure that they would support the weight of denim jeans stacked six high.
• There is wasted space under the shelves where I would rather have more shelves!
• The pieces hang on the wall, which seems dicey as hell.
• The don't let you fill in all available space.
• It's not real wood, so the quality will suck.
• FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN DOLLARS FOR THIS PIECE OF SHIT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?!??

And so, I added "Closet Organizer" to my list of woodworking projects. Then, a couple weeks ago I sketched out what I needed, headed to Home Depot for lumber, then worked on the thing whenever I had a spare moment. It turned out amazingly awesome in every way...

Features...

• Solid wood and built like a tank.
• Shelf supports for extra strength... won't collapse even when packed with heavy jeans.
• Plenty of space for my 36-pair denim collection (biggest Black Friday savings).
• Still room in the header for blankets, pillows, and storage.
• Brushed stainless steel rods and hardware to match my ceiling fan.
• Separate spaces for suits, shirts, and T-shirts.
• Room for easy-access laundry hampers.
• Beautifully constructed! Does not look like a cheap piece of crap.
• $189 in materials. LESS THAN HALF THE COST OF THE SHITTY ONLINE ALTERNATIVE!

Well, it's kinda half the cost of the shitty online alternative. I ended up buying a biscuit cutter to join boards together, which added a $100 expense to the project that I wasn't anticipating. Even so... I still saved around $125 AND I've got a biscuit cutter than I'm sure to use on many future projects!

Oh... I think the cats like it too...

So... all in all a fantastic investment of my time. And I had fun building it to boot... almost no swearing!

On to the next project, whatever that will be.