Are you trying to design an IKEA Pax closet system? I'm here today to share all the tips and tricks I learned while designing our own master closet using the IKEA Pax Closet System!
Hello Hello!
So, today I'm going to try to simplify the IKEA Pax system for you! This is an amazing post with tons of information and a video of me showing how to use the IKEA Pax Planner.
Let's start by talking a little bit about our master closet.
If you follow us on Instagram, you know that we are in the process of renovation.
We work with:
I will share more about our closet situation in another post.
If you want to see how to design the IKEA Algot system, I have a whole post about it here!
But basically we decided to use grass wallpaper on the ceiling and the back wall. We then painted the Pax units and the rest of the Smoke walls by Benjamin Moore. Note: This is not the color of the *face palm* pictures. I decided to do it later, so we'll have to redo it. Lesson learned - if you don't love a paint color, don't!
We installed as many Pax units as we could and I'm really happy with how things have gone so far!
Before you start designing your Pax closet….
Make oneCONSTRUCTION PLANyour closet.
While it sounds fun to jump right into planning, believe me when I say it's best to visualize everything so you don't accidentally buy something that doesn't fit. Or covers an outlet. Or vent.
Here is the floor plan we made for our closet:
Here's what to include in yours:
- Accurate measurements for every wall
- Add permanent elements such as
- doors
- Window
- Floor outlets / warm air return<– very important!
- Add items that *could* be changed if necessary
- lighting
- switch
You need to make sure you have all these items listed because theThe last thing you want is to buy all your Pax units and find they're covering a floor vent!
Now that you have your floor plan, let's talk a little bit about the Pax system in general.
The most important thing to remember when designing your custom Pax system is that they own it.2 different depths, 3 different widths and 2 different heights.
You can now see other depths, widths and heights listed on their website. These are for your MADE products. Like when you choose a Pax system that already has everything in it.
I'm not talking about that here. We design your own Pax system. Basically start with the basic pax shell and add from there.
Let's look at the differences...
latitudes
Here are the 3 width options for your custom Pax system. All widths are also available in all listed depths and heights.
When it comes to widths, look at your area size. This is where the floor plan you created comes into play.
For us we had 12′ 11″ on both walls.
On one wall we used 3 x 19 5/8″ and 3 x 29 1/2″ for a total of just over 147″. This left us with an extra 8″ of space, which we are going to cover with wood (since we are going to be building them). However, if you're just installing the Pax system and aren't planning on fitting it in to give it a custom look, be sure to think about which units will be best suited.
For the other wall we used 1 x 39 3/8″ and 3 x 19 5/8″. That wall wasn't that important because we knew it wasn't going to take up the entire width of the wall. Because of the position of the window (which is another reason to do a floor plan first!).
Be sure to review your floor plan to ensure you are not covering any windows, doors, floor/wall openings, lights or electrical outlets.
I think choosing which Pax units to buy is also down to personal preference. Shelves and drawers will naturally be wider with a wider unit. I know myself and when I have huge drawers and shelves, everything gets cluttered. Because of this, we ended up going with many Pax units that were 19 5/8″ wide.
depth
Before choosing your depths, be sure to consult your floor plan. Be sure to map whether a given depth covers openings, windows, doors or switches/outlets.
The biggest difference between these two depths is the type of hangers you can use.
You can only use a pole that fits the width of the 22 7/8″ deep unit, as the hangers will not fit the 13 3/4″ unit.
That's what I mean:
You can still hang clothes on the 13 3/4″ unit, but it looks like this:
Well, it didn't matter to me that I had to hang my clothes up as pictured above. But for TJ, he has a lot of work clothes that he needs to see more clearly. That's why we chose the deeper 22 7/8″ units for him.
BUT, and this is big, but if we had used 22 7/8″ the entire length of the wall, it would cover a floor vent.That's why it's so important to create a floor plan first. I know I've mentioned this a million times. But please save yourself a lot of time, money and hassle and figure it all out before you even start building your Pax system.
heights
There's not much to consider here. But you should be aware of the two heights offered in the Custom Planner - 79 1/8″ and 92 7/8″.
Tips for using Pax Planner
- You can access the Pax Planner here
- I would just use the Chrome browser. All functions didn't work for me in Safari. I haven't tried other browsers.
- The system works with Flash
- Try to be patient when adding things. Sometimes it takes a few seconds for your products to appear.
- When moving things around, make sure you only have one thing selected in your planner. Products are not "deselected", so if you click on a different product, you will still be selecting the previous product.
- There are many options for interior organizers. I would suggest the following
- shoes below
- drawers at the bottom
- Shelves in the middle up
- pants down
- Shelf on top to store things you don't need all the time
- *Always add a shelf above the top drawer*.You don't want to be looking at the top drawer all the time.
- Remember the hanging clothes tip I shared above, which depends on how deep your Pax unit is.
- IKEA recommends at least 1.6″ of space between the top of Pax units and the ceiling
How to design an IKEA Pax closet system
First, access the Pax planner here. Remember to use Chrome oranother browser that supports Flash (not Safari).
You can choose one of the ready-made options. But I suggest clicking "Rebuild Pax from scratch".
There you can select a room shape. If your space fits one of your shapes, choose that one. You can adjust the dimensions.
Mine is a rectangle, so I selected hers "Square" and typed in our closet measurements.
Then you can add doors and windows. Do not skip this step! It is important to be able to visually see how everything will look. Maybe in your head you're thinking it's going to look bad if the Pax unit is 1″ away from the window. But when you see it visually, you feel different.
When adding windows and doors, you can add all dimensions and positions. Since you've already created your floor plan (like I said 29389827 times), you're good to go!
You can also click and drag windows and doors anywhere on your design.
Once you have the structural elements in place, you can change the wall and floor colors/materials. I don't think it's really necessary, but it sure is something you can do!
Now that you're done, you can click Add Product and we can start building the Pax system!
You can always return to the Room Layout section if you realize you made a mistake or need to change measurements.
In the Add a Product section, you can select your Pax unit based on width, height and depth.
Once you have the width, height and depth you want, select your unit from the images and drag it into Pax Planner.
From here I would recommend adding all the Pax units BEFORE you worry about the indoor unit design.
Once you have the units in place, click the "Interior Organization" button to add shelves, drawers, etc.
*Tip: Use the Hand button with squiggly lines to move your design around*
As you add interiors, Pax Planner notifies you when things are too close!
I've also created a video tutorial to walk you through the process!
This is how our custom IKEA Pax wardrobe looks like:
The total price for the entire cabinet is $2120. However, we bought everything on sale and got 20% off!! It's $1696 for our entire closet. For the amount of stuff you get, I think it's 100% worth it!
Remember to jump over and overfollow not instagramto watch us build our IKEA closet! We will (hopefully) start over soon!
