The house I grew up in had a great closet for puzzles. My parents built the system with my love for puzzles in mind. The apartments I’ve lived in also had great closets for puzzles. I even had a walk-in closet in one that had puzzles stacked as high as I could manage. This house, however, had a closet set up for clothes. I don’t hang up anything other than flannels, and those go in the downstairs closet. For a few years I just put up with this terrible system, then I got tired of the chaos. I don’t have pictures from before. It was a mess, that’s all you really need to know. Puzzles were stacked several feet high, and I just hoped that I didn’t damage any boxes.
Every space in the room also had puzzles stacked on them, and they started spreading into the den. I spent a while trying to figure out a solution to this mess. I searched Pinterest and the internet for ideas, and then my mom suggested this closet system. It’s Dakota Closets from Menards and it worked beautifully.
The whole system cost less than $300 and took an afternoon to set up. I needed some help from my dad to hold the upright boards in place while I put in the shelves, and then to figure out where to anchor it to the wall. I won’t be climbing in this closet like I did as a kid, but anchoring it to the wall is a good idea nonetheless.
Once that was done, the shelves went in easy, and then I just had to organize everything. I like to group by brand and then box size as much as I can. The ones I won’t be doing very soon are at the top because that’s hard for me to reach without a chair.
I knew that I was going to like this setup, but I didn’t know how much I was going to like it. I can very easily get to any puzzle. Nothing has to be moved for me to see what’s behind it. I can see everything. Sometimes I just lay on the floor and look up at the closet, contemplating what puzzle I feel like working on.
No Pieces Missing 