Closet Organization - Completing Installation of Elfa Closet System

Scott Roewer: Hi! I'm Scott Roewer of Solutions by Scott. Welcome back to Organize Your Closet Like a Pro. We're now going to begin the process of installing an Elfa closet from The Container Store. I'm going to tell you all the steps. I'm actually going to install the closet and by the time I'm finished, we will have something brand new that our home owner is going to love. So lets' begin.

The very first thing I'm going to do is install the top track of the Elfa closet. The top track of the Elfa system has two grooves. You want to make sure those grooves face in the up direction. First thing you need to do is measure down from the top of the closet where you're going to to place your track. I'm placing mine about 6 inches down. Next, with your level, make sure your track is parallel to the wall. Make sure your level is in the center. Mark all of your holes and once you've marked your holes, you'll next drill them. Make sure you use the appropriate size drill bit for the type of wall material you're drilling into. For example, if you need a drywall anchor, or if you're using drywall over a wood stud. Today, I'm going into concrete. So the one I'm using is different than what you may use at home. I think I have ten total. I'll drill all ten. I'll insert the anchors, start with the first screw and drill it in. But make sure I'm still level and if I'm level, I'll go ahead and drill in all ten of the screws. Now that my top track is installed, I'm going to hang the standards of the top track. Simply do this by finding the grooves that you made sure were facing up and inserting the standard into the top and it hangs right on the track. I have two types of standards, two are long, three are short. The short ones for my closet go on the right side and the long ones stay in the left. So make sure you're following your diagram so you don't make any mistakes. Next, I'll go and insert the brackets into standards. When you insert the bracket, start from an upward angle and then simply rest in the grooves. If your standards are side by side, you're easily going to be able to tell where to insert the ones across from it, so your shelves are leveled. Now that I've got all the brackets in place, I can slide the standards out to where they'll be. I have 12 inch shelves and 16 inch shelves. I'm going to start with the 16 inch shelves on the right hand side. Once I give the spacing, I'll go ahead and insert all of my shelves. There, that looks great. Now I have some fascia. Fascia is the wood trim. We're installing a ventilated Elfa system, but they do make solid shelving if you prefer to install Elfa somewhere besides your closet. I'll put all of the fascia on first before I insert the clips to hold them on. That way I can make sure my spacing is correct. Take your time. This is the part where it's easy to make mistakes. Now that I have all my fascia in place, I have little clips that hold it on to the ventilated shelf. I'll go ahead and insert those now and all the fascia. As you can probably tell, we're missing our hanging rods. I'm going to go ahead and place those now. I'll use the rod holders. Insert them underneath the 12 inch brackets, lock them into place up on the end caps on the rod. Now they simply snap into place right into the rod holders. It's very sturdy. Now that my shelves are in place and the fascias on and the rods are ready, I can put my bracket covers on. These just give your closet a little more polished look. They set on the edge of your bracket between the bracket and the shelf. So I'll go ahead and put all of those on the closet. Finally, I have top track covers. These go over the top track and they cover all of your screw holes. The purpose is to give your closet a more polished appearance. Well the closet is finished. We've installed an Elfa closet system from The Container Store. If your remember earlier we had one shelf and one pole. Simply not suited for this house. We now have an additional hanging rod on the top. We have shelves that go along the side, and at the bottom we have another hanging rod. So we have doubled his hanging space. And down below plenty of room for his suitcase. The next step is for us to bring everything back into closet. So that's what we'll be doing in the next segment. So stay tuned for more of How to Organize Your Closet Like a Pro.