"He Wears Black and Has a Beard"

Ceiling-mounted wardrobe

Toby Roworth

Mar 12, 2012

When I built the wall across my bedroom, I was left with a bedroom too small to house either of my wardrobes. One was a huge thing, akin to a walk-in cupboard. The other was basically just a hanging rail, which I built with scrap wood and bits of the first wardrobe!
This left me with a problem - I had to put my clothes somewhere, and the only floorspace in my bedroom was now a workshop, so had a very high risk of getting clothes covered in sawdust, and would have involved moving a bookcase to get dressed!
In a moment of truly designery inspiration, I looked up, and saw the space my wardrobe would fit in. Between the top of the door frame and the ceiling was about a foot of space, serving virtually no purpose, just waiting to be filled with clothes.
After a lot of convincing my mother that I wouldn't bring the ceiling down (including a phone call to my Grandad), I got to work with some baton, MDF, poly-prop rope, hanging rail and some massive screws.
Hopefully the photos speak for themselves, but in essence, the wardrobe was a board hinged at one end, with two rail projecting outward when lowered and upwards when on the ceiling, letting the clothes hang when lowered, and stack when raised. Some very basic pulleywork and anchoring points were attached to the door itself, and the wardrobe was born.
It wasn't for the feint of heart, but served it's purpose for a year or so before I moved out. Here follow some photos: