More photos of the install on
my blog.
In the living room of my 5th wheel there is a large closet space that has no shelves in it. You can see the space on the left side of the picture. Since it has a clothes hanger rod at the top I can only assume that this space was intended as a coat closet. Since there is a couple of other large closets with hanger rods in them it just seemed like wasted space to me.
To make the space more useful I wanted to install some shelving. I looked at a number of different shelving systems but since the walls of the space is not much more then 1/8" luan there is not much strength to mount shelf brackets.
I first thought of installing some pullout shelves. The door is only 11" wide and the space behind the door is 19" wide. A sliding shelf system would just waste too much space. I then looked into adjustable wood shelves but decided that wire shelves would be lighter and allow some air flow within the space.
I headed to Lowes since they always have a good selection of different kinds of shelving units. As I looked there were a couple different brands and styles. I wanted something that would hold up over the long run and settled on the ClosetMaid brand. The ClosetMaid system has a top rail that the standards hang from, the standards are thicker then the less expensive brands, the shelf brackets are double thickness and the shelves lock into the brackets. While more expensive then some of the other systems I liked that is more heaver duty.
Toggle BoltsWhile at Lowes I also picked up some plastic toggle bolts made for hollow core doors. Since I'll be mounting to the luan that is only 1/8" thick these work much better then the ones made for thicker drywall. Be sure that you get some with 2" screws to mount the top rail and some with 3" screws for mounting the standards.
Once I got back to the trailer I measured from the floor of the space up 50" and drew a line for mounting the top rail. I drilled the holes for the toggle bolts, pushed in the toggles and screwed the top rail in place. Make sure the top rail is level as everything else is mounted on this rail. If this is not level your shelves will not be level. I used the 2" toggle bolts here.
I then hung the 48" standards from the top rail, marked the spots for the mounting screws, drilled the holes for the toggle bolts and screwed the standards into place. I used the 3" toggle bolts here as the standards are about 1" thick and the 2" screws would not be long enough. When attaching the standards to the wall make sure they are square to the top rail. If they are not then you could have problems when attaching the brackets to the wire shelves.
Since the shelves I got were 4' long I had to use a hacksaw to cut them into 19" lengths. I was thinking I would use 5 shelves but ended up only using 4. Guess I have one in reserve in case I need or I can use the extra shelving for another project.
All that had to be done now was to insert the brackets into the standards and snap the wire shelves into place. It is a little tricky to do as you have to line up a slot in the end of the bracket so the shelf wire go into it as you push down on the top of the shelf so they go into the locking slots as you push back on the shelf to lock it into place. I know it sounds complicated but once you do one shelf it's easy to do the rest.
The biggest decision was just where to place the shelves. At least they are adjustable so they can be moved later if I find out I need them in a different place. If you need some shelving I can recommend the ClosetMaid shelving system. It is heavy duty, fairly easy to install and can be used in many different spaces.
Edited by: hhh
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