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21 November 2010

Three-pronged reno post.... I have three things I'm trying to figure out how to do for my hallway renos...
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1. I'm turning an under-the-staircase pantry closet into a hallwasy coat closet. I want to install a shelf and a garment bar. What tips have you on the best way to do this given that the wall at the one end of the closet is slanted?

2. My linen closet had a light fixture that was a bare bulb with a chain. I took this down (it looked awful and anyway closet light fixtures are supposed to have enclosed light bulbs) and now need to find something to put back up. But I didn't see any light fixtures with chains when I was at Home Depot or Canadian Tire or Rona this weekend. Do they not exist anymore or did I just not see them, and if the former, what do I put in?

3. At the top of the stairs, next to the bathroom door, I have a TV cable cord coming through a little hole in the wall. I don't have cable and have no plans to get it in the near future, though it's possible I may at some point. Meanwhile, what do I do with the cord? The easiest thing to do would to be cut it off to within a few inches of the wall, tuck it into the wall, repair the hole and paint over it, and just remember that it's there to be dug out and spliced in case of future need. Should I do that?

The big problem with this cord is that it's as far as it could possibly be from what my dad calls the mistress room, and that is the only room I would ever put cable in. To get it there, I would have to tack it up the corner of the wall, under the bulkhead that runs across the top of the stairs, through or around the linen closet and then into my room and over the doorway in my room to where the TV is. Th other way to go is to run it around the bathroom, two other bedroom, and attic doors. In otherwords, it would be a major pain in the butt and awful eyesore regardless of which route I take.

Please advise on any or all of the questions. Thanks!

post by: Orange Swan at: 20:04 | 14 comments

US Home Depot has at least one pull chain ceiling light fixture, but I suppose that doesn't guarantee that the Canadian Home Depot does.

posted by amro 21 November | 20:14

I may have resolved the lighting issue. Home Depot Canada carries a wireless closet light system that turns on and off automatically whenever the door opens or closes. And now I'm feeling like an old fogey with my search for pull switch fixture.

posted by Orange Swan 21 November | 20:23

1) Where's the door in relation to the slant? I've seen it a couple of ways.

3) I'd leave it as long as possible, and attach something to it that you also attach to the inside of the patch so it's really easy to find if you decide you want it. Like maybe use electrical tape to attach a string to the end, and glue the string to the back of the patch.

posted by galadriel 21 November | 20:23

Damn. I just spent about ten minutes creating a diagram of my hall closet using my keyboard symbols, and on preview it turned out to be auto-formatted completely differently.

To describe the closet better, it's a hall closet under the stairs with the doorway in the hallway wall, similar to this. Looking into the closet, the ceiling slants down on the left end while the right end is upright.

posted by Orange Swan 21 November | 20:53

So if you open the door and look right, you'll see the high side of the closet, the width of the stairs? That's usually where I see bars and shelves for under-stairs coat closets, if the door isn't situated so you can't put 'em in. (No permission to view that image, btw)

posted by galadriel 21 November | 21:27

When I saw the title, all I could think was "I shot a man in reno..."

posted by oneswellfoop 21 November | 22:21

Just got off the phone with my dad, who suggested that I affix a short length of 2 x 4' to the slanting wall, drill a hole in it at an angle, and then use it as a support both for the garment bar and the shelf. Seems like it would be relatively easy and effective.

posted by Orange Swan 21 November | 22:25

I know someone who is redoing his home, and he uses Google SketchUp for things like this. It looks pretty easy to use.

posted by aniola 21 November | 22:26

The hallway closet is roughly six feet long and two feet deep. The doorway is on one of the six foot sides, so when you look through it you face the other six foot wall, with the slanted two foot wall being on the left and the two foot straight wall being on the right.

posted by Orange Swan 21 November | 23:35

1. Need more details of how the wall is slanted to advise on the hanger/shelf - also can't see the photo.

2. Your dad suggested what I would have suggested. You could also cut a block on an angle so that you have a vertical/horizontal mounting point for a bracket as an alternative, if the position doesn't align to where you want to put the shelf.

3. What is above the wall where the TV cable comes out? Can you get access to the ceiling above it? If possible, I would pull the cable back up into the ceiling and either just leave it there for possible future re-direction or re-route it so that it is in a potentially useful location. There doesn't seem to be much point in allowing re-use at its current location, based on your description of where it is.

posted by dg 22 November | 00:19

Regarding the cable hole: is it low on the wall? Not that it really matters. I would push the cable back into the hole and put a plastic cover over it (I just found out they're called wallplates). If it's in a place you're wallpapering, you can cover it with wallpaper to make it blend in (I don't know if paint will stick to it). That way it's still there an easily accessible yet it blends in and is unobtrusive.

posted by deborah 22 November | 03:43

The cable hole is low on the wall — it's just above the baseboard. So I could easily cover it with a wallplate. I will be painting, but I think it would look unobtrusive just left white — like an electrical outlet.

posted by Orange Swan 22 November | 08:03

I had a problem like this in the house I had in the '90s when I was trying to hang a shower curtain in a third floor bath. The room was built right under the roof so that the one wall sloped at about a 30 degree angle. I did what dg suggested and cut a block of wood to the reverse angle of the wall so that it created a vertical surface to screw the curtain holder to.

posted by octothorpe 22 November | 08:38

Seconding the automatic lights, but make sure you get the ones that have the super wide range. (I want to say it's more than 180 degrees, but I'm not completely sure what the biggest range is.) My brother installs those things in just about every damn closet he redos.

posted by sperose 22 November | 10:27

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