How to Turn a Closet into a Home Office

Follow these step-by-step instructions for turning a closet into a functional home office.

Need a home office but don't have a spare room? Put one in a closet. Here's how:

Materials and Tools:

wood for desktop (at least ¾-inch thick)
hanging baskets
paint, self-adhesive paper or a tablecloth (optional)
closet rod
storage equipment

Steps:

Choose a closet that's large enough for your needs and remove the door. If it's a sliding door, remove it from the track. If it's on hinges, just pull the pin out of the hinges and it's done.
Use an existing pair of shelf ledges to create a desktop. Have a board that's at least ¾-inch thick cut to size at your local lumber store.
Decorate or cover the wood if desired. You can use paint, self-adhesive paper or a tablecloth to cover the wood top and edges. To make it unique, you can cut out shapes and applying them to the covering.
Suspend hanging baskets from the closet rod to store items such as pencils, a stapler, a tape dispenser and extra paper. This keeps them off the desktop but still within reach.

Other storage options:

A roll-out filing cabinet.
Bins that stack on top of each other. Buy a bin that's deep enough to insert a hanging file system. It's inexpensive and easily portable.
Old, stackable vegetable trays for use as paper-filing trays.
Old ice-cream buckets for each member of the family. Hang them from the closet rod to provide a place to keep personal items such as bills and letters.
A twine hanger for messages and documents. Attach two eyelet screws across from each other on side walls of the closet. Tie a piece of twine to one screw. Connect two paper clips together and string one of the paper clips onto the twine. Do this with several sets. Attach the other end of the twine to the other screw. Hang documents with the paper clips.