I Hacked an IKEA Coat Rack into a Closet — It Was So Good I Did It 3x

The floor of my 9-year-old’s tiny, closet-less bedroom was slowly disappearing under a mountain of clothes and, worse, a ridiculously large collection of stuffed animals. My request to downsize her plushie party was met with a hard “no,” so I decided it was time to bring some order to the chaos by introducing new storage. 

I was reluctant to invest in a large freestanding wardrobe because it would have dominated the room and made an already small space feel even smaller. Instead, I went in search of an open unit with enough shelving and hanging room to accommodate her belongings while being shallow enough not to feel overpowering. Enter: IKEA’s MACKAPÄR coat rack, which fits the bill perfectly.

The MACKAPÄR coat rack includes two lower shelves for shoe storage and 10 hooks to hang up coats and clothes. It has a depth of just over 12 inches, making it around half as deep as a standard wardrobe — which is typically 24 inches — ensuring that it wouldn’t eat up much floor space in my daughter’s small bedroom. It also has a width of nearly 31 inches and a generous height of almost 79 inches, allowing us to take advantage of the available vertical space for storage without impacting the usable square footage. While the dimensions were precisely what I was looking for in a wardrobe, the unit itself wasn’t set up for hanging the amount of clothes you’d typically have in a wardrobe (beyond the 10 hooks). 

First, I removed the hooks so I could use the crossbars as hanging rails for clothing. Then, I attached the hooks that I’d removed from the crossbars to the side of the unit, creating more opportunities for my daughter to easily hang hoodies, robes, hats, and bags. 

The MACKAPÄR also benefits from two lower shelves that are designed to hold shoes, but I found they worked best in my daughter’s room for storing books and (yes!) the stuffed animals she’d been stockpiling. The top of the unit is flat, so it can also double as an extra shelf. 

I was so impressed with this sturdy steel unit that after initially buying just one, I went back and bought two more. I’ve added two MACKAPÄR units side by side in my youngest daughter’s room, and I erected one individual unit in my older daughter’s bedroom for the same purpose. At just $80 each, it creates a phenomenal amount of versatile storage for the price. It has a clean white base, so there are plenty of other ways to make it yours, either by rearranging the hooks and shelves, or even by painting it another color.

It’s worth noting that this coat-rack-turned-closet works particularly well in a child’s room because their garments are smaller. For adult clothes, you might have to skip the lower rail so that long garments like dresses or long jackets don’t hit the rail. Of course, it would also work just as well as an entryway coat rack, as it was designed.

Buy: IKEA MACKAPÄR coat rack, $79.99