Girls Just Wanna Have...Closets

chris — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:04:52 -0500

Closets. We all have them. We all wish we had more of them. No matter how many you have, things you wish to store in a closet exceed your available space.

How do you build a closet and organize it so that you don't end up with clothes shoved all the way back in the dark recesses of your closet, clothes that have not seen the light of day since 1989. Not that I would know about that. Afterall I haven't lived in this house since 1989 and I certainly would not have packed up out of style clothes and moved them with me. Ahem.

Most of us restoring old houses houses know all too well the heartache of no closet space. Sure I live in a gigantic old house, but I have NOWHERE to put anything. Seriously. My closet is currently a single door closet that is hardly wider than the door. It can barely house my shoe collection. And when we bought the house it didn't even have a bar in it, instead it had hooks lining the wall.

My husband has completely taken over an unused bedroom as his own personal closet until which time we redo our bedroom and address the closet situation. We call it his "dressing room" and we say it in our super snobby voices just for fun. Because the reality of storing all your clothes in a room all the way down hall that has the ugliest peeling wallpaper known to human kind is anything but snobby.

So when I read this over at Fixer Upper I had to laugh. And wish that they lived near me so I could invite them over for drinks. I just know that they would not think it was the least bit odd when I told them to step over the air compressor to reach the bathroom and hold the door shut with their foot while the peed.

We’ve been living without a master bedroom closet for quite a while now. It’s become quite natural to walk down the hall to one of the spare bedrooms and rifle through the closet in there, using the entire bedroom as a changing area and place to pile up dirty clothes. It’s luxurious, really, having an entire room to store my wardrobe full of paint-spattered tank tops and torn jeans.

Stealing space from a room to add a closet is easy and surprisingly inexpensive.

Mindy provides a link to The Family Handyman where step by step instructions are given to build a closet in your room.

The framing materials and drywalling supplies for this 12-ft. long x 26-in. deep closet cost us $100. We ordered expensive birch doors ($700 per pair) to show how handsome you can make closets look. But stock six-panel pine doors or bifolds cost as little as $400 per opening. In general, match the other doors in your house. Add the millwork, door hardware (our four dummy knobs cost $80), paint, closet shelving and labor to reinstall the carpet, and the total cost of our closets was about $1,500.

This closet isn’t complex. An energetic beginner could complete it successfully in about four weekends. You probably don’t need a building permit for the closet.

I am not sure how accurate the quote is for costs involved for doing this project. If you do it yourself, it will certainly cost way less than that. And four weekends? I don't think we have been able to do anything in just four weekends.

Closets don't have to be elaborate, just well thought out and organized.

Jocelyn writes about her closet renovation:

My new closet may not look like much to you with grander closets- but you should have seen it before. Jam-packed with stuff and no light inside. The door had a full size shoe rack and I was constantly bumping into it and shoes would fall on my head. A real treat in the morning when you are getting dressed for work.

Click on the link to see her after closet. It is simple, yet functional. I think sometimes we see photos of closets that are larger than most people's bedrooms and meticulously organized and color co-ordinated, and we think how can my closet ever be organized when I don't have a fraction of the space. I think Jocelyn does a great job showcasing what works with a small closet.

Now you just need to follow Susan's advice and purge your closet of all the old, ill-fitting clothing. I'll be back next week to discuss how to organize your closet without spending a fortune. Unless you want to spend a fortune. In which case, have at it. And can you buy me a few things at the Container Store too?

When she isn't blogging at Notes From the Trenches, Chris is busy saving her house from a century of neglect and bad taste.

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Girls Just Wanna Have...Closets