Now presenting the latest in a series of posts by Sally Kohn— journalist and CNN political commentator, TED talk giver, and design aficionado—chronicling her adventures in remodeling. In this installment: There are many reasons to line a closet with cedar: it smells lovely, keeps moths away….and, as Sally found, it gives a hard-working but under-appreciated space an upgrade.
When my wife declared that she wanted me to line a closet in our guest apartment with cedar, the first thing I thought about was money. While inflation has made everything more expensive, the cost of cedar is really prohibitive. To wit, when I went to order the cedar tongue-and-groove needed to line the roughly 3-foot-by-3-foot-by-7-foot closet, it cost about $900. I doubt it’s the most expensive closet in the world, but still, it’s now definitely the most expensive closet in my house. By a lot.
Otherwise, let me just say, swallowing the price of the materials was the hardest part. The rest was just math. I used this calculator online to figure out how much wood I would need. I ended up buying 20 8-foot-long cedar tongue-and-groove boards to line the closet and had a little left over, but that was my intention in case I made mistakes. Also, I should note, I bought A-grade clear cedar. I could have used the knotty variety and saved a little money, but do you really think my wife, who didn’t think twice about wanting a $900 cedar lined closet, was going to settle for less-than-perfect cedar? No, I didn’t think so either. Plus, honestly, if I was gonna do it, I wanted it to look like it was worth the effort.
Above: The closet in progress.
Installing the tongue-and-groove cedar was easier than I thought. I initially was planning to go width-wise and then when I realized how much extra work that would be, I quickly settled on a vertical orientation. It made the closet look taller, sort of like when I wear striped pants. And then I only had two hard corner joints to navigate rather than dozens. I glued each piece into place and used a nail gun to reinforce it. Like I said, the only tricky part was the corners. Then I finally had to get over my fear of my table saw and rip the boards that would squeeze into the corners. That was also made harder by having to cut the piece thin enough to wedge into the tongue/groove while not leaving so big a gap that it would be visible. I did the right side of the closet and then the left side—and then the back, so that I could use the back pieces to hide those little gaps. If you look closely, you can see a few spaces where I screwed up, but thankfully no one looks closely and they’re in the back corners that are mostly hidden by linens.
Above: The finished product.
If you don’t have a table saw or access to a table saw, you could certainly use a circular saw and guide for this. Alternatively, I didn’t try, but another option would be to have overlapped pieces at either the back corners or the front. It might look weird, but, again, mostly no one is going to see it, and you could do it in a way that wouldn’t interfere with the shelves. An idea to mess around with if you can’t rip those pieces.
For the shelves, I cut pieces out of cedar 1x2s that I leveled and nailed into place to then rest cedar shelves on. My “trick” (which is probably obvious) is to measure and level the one side cleat and nail that in, then place a shelf on it and when the shelf is level and plumb, nail that other cleat. Otherwise, I didn’t nail the shelves into place. I find the weight of the stuff keeps the shelves down, and I like the option of being able to take out the shelves for deep cleaning. Or I’m lazy. You decide.
Above: A few of us on the Remodelista team have cedar-clad storage: Longtime contributor Justine Hand sourced a cedar-lined armoire from Etsy and uses it primarily as a linen closet in her Cape Cod family cottage. Photograph by Matthew Williams for Remodelista.
And though the cedar I used is just regular cedar, not aromatic, it does smell cedar-y just because there’s so much of it. And a woodworker friend assured me I don’t have to finish the wood at all—especially since it’s not in the sun or other elements, there’s no real need to, and that way I can spray it with cedar oil from time to time to replenish or even strengthen the scent.
I have to tell you, the effect overall is mesmerizing. My closet looks like a sauna. It’s peaceful and calming. And really does smell great. And despite the cost and the fact that I hate admitting I’m wrong, I kinda now want to line every single closet in the house with cedar.
More of Sally’s remodeling adventures:
