Turning a Closet into a Display Nook

Turning a closet into a display nook was a project that we had planned for a while. We’re giving a makeover to a large bedroom and we’ll be using it as an upstairs den.

While having an empty nest brings lots of changes, I’ve leaned that it comes with a few advantages as well. One of those is that we could put our plan to convert what had become a spare bedroom into an upstairs den into action.

Gloria had a large bedroom and from the time we bought our house years ago, I knew that one day her old room would become our sports & planes memorabilia room. We waited until she moved into her own place before we got started. It’s still a work in progress, but one of the best parts of the room is the closet conversion. 

Turning a Closet into a Display Nook

The room had a standard double door closet with a white wire shelving unit inside. I had a vision of turning the space into a display area.  Why have an unused closet just taking up space? 

How To Convert a Closet into a Display Nook

The solution was to convert the closet. We started by removing the doors and the tracks. Next, we removed the wire shelving. I repainted the trim white and painted the interior of the closet brown for contrast and to match the walls that we had repainted only a few years ago.

*Since this post was done, the room, along with the display nook, got a makeover with new paint colors that I’ve shown in the photos above.

After looking a lots of options, we decided the best look for what we wanted was to go with 9 x 11 inch wooden brackets from Lowes. I painted them white to match the shelves. We would use four brackets per shelf. One thing I’ve learned about my engineer husband is that when he builds something, he’s going to make sure it’s sturdy; there will be no sagging shelves here! He’s going to spend tons of time planning every little detail. Drives me nuts sometimes, but in the end, his planning always pays off!

I painted the unfinished brackets and shelves white using Valspar Ultra Semi Gloss Paint and Primer in One.

We decided to use shelves that are 12″ deep and 1″ thick and cut them down to the appropriate length. In order to make them slide in easily, they were cut to provide a quarter inch gap to the wall on each end. While they were already white when purchased, they needed to be painted to get the bright white I wanted.

I cannot begin to count the number of times my husband measured and remeasured before he cut the shelves to size. It was great that he did because they fit just right.

Once everything was cut, the brackets were mounted. We made sure to give the shelves the height we wanted between each one. We didn’t want the same height between the shelves and we wanted a total of six shelves. Lots of measuring ensued! 

This should hold most of his collectible planes, at least for now!

To give it a more finished look, my husband cut a piece of shelving to use as a front cover for the bottom shelf. He attached this using wooden dowels behind it. That wasn’t in our original plans, but it definitely adds to the overall look.

After all the brackets were mounted and the shelves in place, it was time to set the display up. It’s filled with model airplanes, a couple of special awards my husband has received, as well as some aeronautical books of his. 

Closet Conversion-Organizing a Display Nook

The room is coming together, though there are still some changes in furniture I plan on making, but for now, I’m enjoying the new look it has with the closet conversion and that there is a designated display space for the airplane collection.  I love that we found a way to make better use of space and his planes are all well organized.

You can see the room makeover, including the new paint for the display nook in my How to Makeover a Bedroom into a Den post.

Using a Closet for a Display Nook