This DIY closet organizer comes in at under $200. I mean, seriously, have you ever looked at the cost of a closet organizer? My goodness! They can get quite pricey. And though I am quite fond of building out awesome organizers on the IKEA online PAX builder, I’m just not quite ready to dish out six or nine hundos on a wardrobe.

My room is quite tiny and unfortunately doubles as my office. Space is very limited. I had my dresser in the bottom of my closet previously, and it just wasn’t working. It was an old dresser I got from my sister and had refinished, but the drawers were all falling out. It was also just too tall for the space it was in.

With the expensive store-bought organizers out of the question, I set off to Home Depot with my sister to see if I could build my own!

I wanted the shelving unit to fit the cube bins from IKEA, so with those dimensions in mind, I set to work. Initially, I was going to use a big 4×8 sheet of white melamine and just get it cut down to the sizes I needed, but then we found these awesome pre-measured white shelving pieces that were the proper width, and would only be about a dollar more per piece. Plus – they had a finished edge as well, so despite the little added cost, that’s what we got! And our DIY closet organizer still came in well under $200.

Here’s the finished product:

I had some drawer units on my shelves for my work space, but I wasn’t happy with how my supplies were fitting, so I swapped them out and put the drawers in my closet. With my closet going quite higher than the door frame, top storage options were limited. I knew I wanted to use photo boxes, so thankfully clearance wasn’t too big of a problem.

Finally, trying to maximize as much usable space as possible in the wood bins and not spend any money in the process, I created a divider out of some cardboard and just wrapped it in some nice wrapping paper I had on hand.

Cost breakdown:

Closet Organizer Unit:

2 – 30″-48″ Expandable Closet Rods – $12/each
1 – 18″ – 30″ Expandable Closet Rod – $10
3 – 5/8″ x 15 3/4″ x 96″ Melamine Shelving – $13/each
1 – 5/8″ x 11 3/4″ x 96″ Melamine Shelving – $10
8 – 3/4″ Furniture brace – $1/each

Accessories:

2 – BRANÄS Basket – $12.99/each
2 – KALLAX Insert with 2 drawers – $20/each

Total: $156.98

And there you have it, our very own closet organizer under $200! I’m quite proud if I do say so myself.

Note from future Bex: These costs were at the time of building this organizer. It may be more expensive now that pricing has skyrocketed.

This project was so much fun! I’m sure I could have got a wire closet organizer for about the same price, but I despise those wire shelving units. This unit is exactly what I wanted, and looks great too!

Do you think you could build a closet organizer under $200? I’d love to hear about your closet organizing escapades as well. Share in the comments!