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When the weather turns colder, it’s time to stay indoors more and get working again on home projects. One project was to build a closet with a sloped ceiling in our upstairs loft.
Here’s how we did that – and now we have lots of storage room for clothes, shoes and pretty much everything else we wear. If you’re looking for attic closet ideas, take a look at what we did to gain extra storage! If you have kids, this could also make a great storage closet for toys and games.
Here’s one of our projects. He built a closet for a sloped roof line in our loft. When we moved in here, there weren’t many closets at all in this house. So we have had to add closets where we can.
Why a Slanted Ceiling Closet Build?
This is a great way to take advantage of empty space in your home and instantly increase your storage! An angled ceiling closet is fairly easy to install, and if you have any room with sloped ceilings and open floor space, this is a great way to utilize that for closet space.
With lots of options, this is a fantastic way to customize your own storage area. Once the closet is installed, there are lots of ways you can use the storage space inside.
- Screw hooks into the walls to hold jackets or shirts.
- Install shelves to hold shoes or other accessories.
- Purchase some large plastic bins to keep things contained but still visible.
- You could also stock your new walk-in closet with a chest of drawers or other useful furniture!
If you need more inspiration, Pinterest is a great place to see how people make the most use of even the tightest closet spaces. Search for sloped attic closet ideas and poke around to see what strikes your fancy!
Now, let’s get on to how to actually construct your built in closet.
How to Build a Sloped Ceiling Closet
Above our dining room is a loft. It’s roughly 8 feet by 14 feet in size. It’s right off our master bedroom so we have a door from the bedroom into this area.
That’s not a very good photo, but I wanted to show the layout. Dining room below and loft above.
It’s really the perfect place for a couple of nice big closets, which we sorely needed. An excellent location for our slanted ceiling closet build!
The black pipe is the stovepipe from the woodstove. I am standing at the top of the stairs. Earlier, I had painted the walls of the loft before Graham started the construction.
Once the closets are in and all the work is done, he will use his sawmill to cut a nice wide piece of pine. We will nail that on the wall from the ledge to the ceiling. Then I will finish painting that bit of wall there and the whole project will be complete.
Slanted Ceiling Closet Build – Design the Closet
Basically, what we want to end up with are two closets along this wall. Each closet will have doors; inside the closet will be room for hanging clothes and also shelving for folded clothes, shoes etc.
Take your time to design your closet! Figure out what kind of storage you need and want and think about how you can achieve everything you want.
Take into account the depth of the closet. Is it possible to make it another 8 inches deeper, so you can utilize the space under your hanging clothes for larger, bulkier items?
For instance, we are able to store our luggage and extra blankets on the floor space under our clothes.
Draw up the Closet Plan
Draw up the plan on graph paper, so you can take the measurements and figure out the wood you will need. Tip: be sure to have one of your closet studs in the correct vertical position to later use this stud for attaching the closet rods.
Take your lumber list to the building supply and grab what is needed.
Closet Doors
Closet doors come in standard sizes, so check to be sure you know what those sizes are. This is so you can draw up your closet plan correctly, knowing the total measurements for the closet door openings.
Since we had already bought the doors, we had to build the openings around the door measurements.
Note: Be sure that your closet doors are going to fit within your door openings. If you are out an inch, you can use shims. But plan ahead!
The first thing he did to build a closet with a sloped ceiling (a bit of a pain!) is to install the exterior walls of the closet, up against the existing wall. Graham built the exterior wall out of 2 x 4 lumber, cutting them to fit the slope of the ceiling.
Finishing the Closet Interior
After the framing, he started to add the inside pine paneling on the walls. Then he worked on the electrical wiring. We wanted to have one light fixture in each closet. We also needed a light in the loft walkway.
Next was installing the closet rod, which is pretty easy to do – just be sure to mount the bracket hardware in a stud of the new closet framing.
The one closet has just the closet rod in it and there is enough room in there to hang all our hanging clothes. Since there’s also a small closet in the master bedroom, we now have enough room for the clothes we need on hangers.
Eventually, he will add the closet doors. Until that time, we just hung hooks and ran string along. I found two bed sheets with a wide top hem, opened up the sides of the casing and ran the rope through them. That will help to keep the clothes clean until we get the doors on.
And we will put down laminate flooring to match what is on the main floor – oak. Laminate flooring is such an easy floor to maintain.
Storage Solutions for Purses, Hats, Shoes
For the other closet, I am going to try to design it so we have space to put things like boots, purses, scarves, etc. I will take my time with planning it so we will have room for all of our accessories.
The closet looks really nice with all that pine board. It’s going to look fantastic when we have this finished.
We also have a LOT of “other season” clothes. You know what I mean, we have basically whole wardrobes for summer and winter.
We do a lot of layering up here when it starts getting cold. As a result, we have lots and lots of clothes. So those clothes need a place to live in off season.
I’m thinking it would be great to have two or three shelves to run along the back of this closet. That way we could keep the off season clothing on the shelves there. We could even run a shelf higher up, so we would have more sloped ceiling storage.
We could also run the shelves around the corner, so that two-thirds of the closet would be in shelves. And it’s a nice deep closet, so there should be plenty of room. This should take care of all the clothes.
Then, if we leave the other side more open, maybe we could customize some closet shelves there to hold the purses, belts, scarves etc. with all the shoes and boots down below.
Keep reading for the second part of how to build a closet with a sloped ceiling where the doors get hung.
Part 2 of Slanted Ceiling Closet Build
More Home Renovation Articles
- Got a really UGLY staircase that needs fixing? Read about our Stairwell Transformation – you won’t believe the “Before” picture!
- Here’s how we changed old ugly lime green (!) counters to look like Granite for under $150 – How to Paint your Counters to look like Granite.
- Is your house stuck in the ’70’s with ugly wood paneling. Here’s how to Paint Grooved Wood Paneling to completely change the look of your home.
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This post was originally published back in 2009, updated in November 2022.