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Renovating a houses original wire wardrobe system into a modern, sturdy unit.
THE SCENARIO
We acknowledge that many people enjoy a Wire Wardrobe System, and it certainly has its place in many households, however since purchasing this house we've hated it, removing it from our bedrooms and finally, this Linen closet. The old system was an eyesore, broke with too much weight on it and was poorly installed into the house when built, clearly the cheapest option available:
THE PLAN
We wanted to build something that was good looking, feels good to touch and is sturdier than the wire system. We also wanted a tall unit with a power point installed inside of it for things like our stick vaccum. The height needed to be consistent as well, as the wire placement was uneven and all over the place, the top height made placing items up their difficult. My Dad took the lead on this project.
THE MATERIALS
I purchased the following (NOTE, I always purchase in Excess, just in case):
4x - 2400 x 1200mm 16mm Melamine White Matt*
4x - Pine Moulding FJ Colonial SA2 42x11mm 5.4m Clear COL2
6x - Pine DAR FJ Clear 68x18mm 5.4m
1x - Pine DAR FJ Clear 31x11mm 5.4m
* I was originally meant to purchase a non White Matt base for this project (we were going to paint), however 3 trips to 3 Bunnings got us "We're out of stock" responses, so the lovely trades section peeps opted to price match what we were purchasing to what we were originally going to get to make our lives easier. Very thankful for that.
BUILDING
First thing we had to do was clear out the Linen Storage, this was easy, but we discovered the many shortcuts the original builders took for this project. We also did a good clean of the walls and vacced the area.
After we completed that, we filled the holes with a poly hole repair kit and sanded the excess when dry, we then cleaned the floor again. (HINDSIGHT: This is when we should have painted the interior with the white we wanted, however we opted not to because we didn't know how scuffed the paint would have been when installing the units, if we had our time again, we would have painted).
With the materials he needed, my dad got to work cutting our new shelves.
The support system was installed first, the top full length board is actually two precise cuts of the melamine.
We wanted to ensure our primary storage height was adequate to what we already had, so we used these kmart storage units to ensure we had things right. Once the build was complete (and our electrition friend installed a 4x powerpoint), all that was needed was some painting.
Already much better! We made an alteration at the last minute and created a hole closest to our power point for our Ryobi Chargers, ensuring our batteries are always charged.
And that's it really, we reinstalled the sliding doors onto the tracks and have re-filled out cupboard. Everything fits much better, feels more secure and overall looks fantastic. Another quick project finished 
Hello @Remarka6le
Thank you so much for sharing the progress shots and materials list of your linen closet makeover. You're absolutely right, you can clearly see where the wire shelves have started to bend and warp. Using melamine sheets was a good choice for shelving, it can take a bit of weight and saves you from having to paint it. Putting the timber edging was a nice touch, it's a great alternative to using iron edging.
How much time in total did it take to remove and build the shelving? How big are the gaps between shelves? Are there any other areas with wire shelving and will you be replacing them as well?
Again, thank you for sharing your linen closet makeover.
Eric
