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Tell me about your custom closets

shiny

Veteran

We have an offer on our house, and an offer on a new place! So exciting.

We are moving into the city to a penthouse condo with amazing views, an open floor plan, 12 foot high ceilings, and a beautiful WFH office space for me! The place screams "modern" so we are probably going to ditch our traditional furniture and go modern. It needs some TLC/ renovations to make it just right, but nothing we don't feel up to.

The new place is fantastic and has everything on our (extensive) wish list, except the closet space is less-than-ideal. It's definitely workable but I'm planning to get a custom closet designer to come in shortly after we close. Specifically, I'm envisioning:

1. Custom shelving in the current bedroom closet, which is an angled walk-in, under the eaves. Right now it barely has any shelves at all; what it has is cheap wire shelving. I think with custom shelving this will be a good space for shirts and pants, and some longer items.

2. A free-standing wardrobe with doors. The master bedroom has 8-foot tall ceilings, so this can go the full height. The bedroom is quite spacious, so it can accommodate such a piece easily. I'm imagining DH's wardrobe in this, as well as my drawer stuff (as I'm planning to ditch all our current traditional style bedroom furniture). So I want a wardrobe that has lots of drawer space.

(side note: the guest bedroom, which is equally huge -- and huge enough to fit a full bed AND bunk beds -- has an ample and quite nicely appointed closet as well, albeit, wire shelving. But I don't want to fill this up with our wardrobes, since I suspect we'll have boomerang young adults staying with us for a bit post-closet)

3. In the master it also has a tall, deep but narrow alcove. I am thinking about putting a door on it and installing shelves for shoes and handbags, as I think it'd be just perfect for that.

4. . It has an... interesting... hall closet as well... long and tall... that one of the similar units had lined in cedar. DH and I love this idea, and he wants to do this project himself. We imagine this will be the place to put our out-of-season stuff, as well as formal/occasional wear (DH has a ton of tuxes).

5. There is an ample linen closet, again with wire shelving, which is tall and long but not too deep. I may or may not get this one overhauled, budget depending.

6. Off the kitchen there's another alcove, which currently houses a gigantic refrigerator size wine cooler. We're thinking of making this into a utility closet.

7. There's yet another alcove in the office, which could be made into a closet as well.

I'll take advice on any of this, but primarily I'd love to hear your experiences and own wish list items for custom closets to stow your wardrobes!! What works? What do you wish you had? So I'm sure not to miss anything as I build my own wish list.

Also -- please share your experiences (good bad or indifference) if you had a custom closet designer come in.

General

19 replies

Latest reply was from shiny

shiny

Veteran

OOh... and pictures!!!! Share pictures!!!

carter

Veteran

Congratulations! The new place sounds wonderful.

I am totally OCD when it comes to closets/storage, so if this is way more than you bargained for...sorry!

I would not move in my current house until I had a custom closet installed. My husband DID NOT get it. There was no way I could deal with the jumbled mess of the previous owner's master closet (pic 1).

I found the closet company representative to be seriously lacking in creativity, so I designed my own closet in powerpoint. It's not inexpensive, but it's worth every penny to me. Pics 2-7 are my closet today. 2 shows what I think of as my active wardrobe. 3 shows accessories and loungewear. 4 is obviously shoes. 5 is additional handbag storage and belts. 7 is out of season storage and gear.

Some of the features I like best:

--The valet bars, which you can see in pics 2 and 7
--The drying bars you can see in pic 6. These are just Ikea items, but they are perfect for drying lingerie, and they swing flat against the wall when not in use.
--Jewelry storage. Love the slat board.
--flat surface for changing purses, etc
--shoe storage behind closed doors...it just looks so much neater when the doors are closed.

Adding some other custom storage projects I've done around the house:
--pic 8 is the pantry today. pic 9 is the design I did for the closet company

--pic 10 is the mudroom mail station just after it was installed. Pic 11 is the design I did for the closet company

--pic 12 is the garage storage. These used to serve as a wardrobe/storage closet in my stepmom's guest bedroom. When she remodeled and no longer needed them, I snatched them for my garage. I just had the rods removed and ordered more shelves. Perfect.

Hope some of this helps! Sorry if it's TMI.

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elpgal

Veteran

*picks jaw off the floor* Carter, you genius, you!

Your new digs sound lovely, Shiny. We moved from an apartment with 12 foot ceilings to a house with 8 foot ones and how I sorely miss the vertical space.

shiny

Veteran

Oh wow, Carter! Thanks!! Not TMI at all. Exactly the type of input I was looking for!

Which closet company did you use? How long did the process take? What was it like? I'd love to ask costs, but if that's TMI to share, no worries.

I'm liking that jewelry valet quite a bit...

What do you do for light in your closet? Curious minds want to know...

Also how many drawers do you think are needed (versus hanging space)?

And what about laundry baskets? DH and I have always maintained "his and hers" and we want to continue that practice (he's the one that's particular!).

carter

Veteran

Shiny, I used Spacemakers, which I think is a regional Southeastern company.
http://www.spacemakersclosets.com/

Can't remember exactly how long the Master closet took, but I'd guess around 3 weeks from the time I gave her the plan. This closet was less than half the size of the closet I'd had for years, so I took a good couple weeks to measure my clothes (4' of hanging pants, 2' of dresses, etc) and figure out how to get the most of the space. In retrospect, the drawers are not efficient for me. I have 8 of them. One holds non-hanging jewelry. One is tanks and camis (folded konmari style!) One is bras. One is panties and scarves. One is sleepwear. One is socks and hosiery. One is miscellaneous underpinnings and one is swim/beach wear.

I keep a laundry basket in the linen closet in my bathroom. (We have separate closets and separate baths, joined by a walk-thru shower.) My husband keeps his laundry basket in his closet. In picture 2, the door leads to the laundry room. I love this set-up.

The master closet is maybe 9' x 10'. I think I paid about $5400 8 years ago. The jewelry display board was an aftermarket item that I bought through a local retail supplier. They cut to measure and my handyman installed. That was a couple hundred.

The pantry was a reconfiguration of shelving units that were pulled out of another closet at my stepmom's. With a couple modifications, I got a full pantry and a large coat closet out of it. The only new pieces I had to have made were the center pieces in the pantry that hold serving platters and wine. Those were probably a few hundred. I paid one of Spacemaker's installers (with their blessing) $700 to install the pantry and coat closet on his day off. I will try to find a pic of what my mom's old closet looked like.

The mail station was part of a larger home improvement project, but I'm thinking it was about $1300 for cabinets, $300 for marble and about $100 for electrical. Spacemakers did the cabinets as well. The garage units were removed from my mom's and re-installed here by my handyman. Maybe $300 in labor. I ordered 6-7 shelves from Spacemakers. I think they were $22 each, with no installation required.

Lighting in my closet is an issue. I have a window over the vanity area (not shown) and a regular little closet light above. My next closet will have flourescent.

Hope this helps!

ETA: here's what my pantry and coat closet pieces looked like before we ripped them out of my mom's closet. There was another wall to this too, some of which worked perfectly for the coat closet.

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Anonymous

Carter -- I just gotta say your powerpoint presentations are a treat. I eagerly look forward to them. I am always so inspired I attempt to emulate your genius.

carter

Veteran

I think you mean madness, Sterling;-).

Shiny, meant to say to ignore all the notations about holes in the picture above. The closet consultant was not grasping a key detail, so I did that slide for her.

One other thing on the master closet...when you do your shoe closet, think about whether you want all your shoes on shelves or in cubbies like mine. I think my next shoe closet will be flat shelves, but these pre-made cubbies from Target saved me a bundle of money and space. The shoe cabinet was built around them. Also, your shoe and bag closet could be a great place to steal a wall for a jewelry slat board. You could also hang belts and scarves here.

Mauvish

WOW!!!! Just WOW! Carter.

*** standing ivation with a dropped jaw***

What an amazing use of your talent, obsessions ( what ever you call them ) to streamline your life.

unfrumped

Veteran

I love storage ideas and designs!

Also think where height- wise. I like shoes eye level and up rather than low or near floor and aim for things to be hanging to near floor rather than stirs anything on thd floor. I love double closet rods, but you may have more dresses.

Anonymous

I am feeling SO INSPIRED to remodel my closets.

Here is what I know about me and my closet preferences. One, I want to be able to see everything that is part of that seasons' offerings in an instant. Everything.

Two, I want all my slacks to be hung full length (not folded over). I want all my knits to be visible as well. I just recently started folding using the konmari style. I love how it looks in my closet. Oh, I don't put my knits in drawers. They are neatly folded and placed on wood shelves in my closet. The only things I put in drawers are underpinnings, athletic wear, and sleepwear.

Three, I separate according to category: work slacks, work tops, casual pants, lounging pants, etc. So when I need a particular "type" of something, I reach into that exact location in my closet. This also manages quantities. I can see in a instant if some category is exploding. Oddly, I have roughly the same number of items in each category.

Hmmmm. How I love talking about closets.

Karie

(website)

Veteran

Shiny, your new home sounds beautiful! We might just have to have another Boston meet-up so we can tour it
And Carter, your closet is the bomb! WOW. I'd be happy if I had the closet of your previous owner (small house, small closets is my issue).
Shiny, my only suggestion is to do a lot of what Carter already said, and what I did when we renovated our kitchen - take measurements of the spaces, draw up a diagram of how you might like things to look, have a list of your "must haves," look through catalogs at the store, and listen to the sales person's suggestions. I'm sure it will turn out to be gorgeous!

shiny

Veteran

Carter - can I hire you? I had not considered shoe cubbies.

Unfrumped, I do have a lot of dresses and like Sterling prefer my dress pants hung full length/not folded.

Sterling, I recently Konmari'd my drawers (and DH's clothes as well). I like Konmari drawers for: underwear, jeans, socks, tee shirts, lounge & active wear. I suppose I could hang jeans (folded over a hanger) instead of putting them in a drawer.

Not sure I'd separate according to work vs casual because I do like to mix both a lot (smart casual) and very little in my wardrobe is "strictly" work vs "strictly" casual. I guess I mean my hanging wardrobe; pj's, active & loungewear are strictly casual, but I prefer those be kept in drawers.

Totally agree about managing quantities!! When I Konmari'd DH's stuff recently, he had wayyyy too many boxer shorts and socks. I'm trying to get him to cut down to what can fit in a drawer. Right now he's got the excess boxed and stacked with the other moving boxes.

shiny

Veteran

Kari - no Boston meet up until the new place is renovated and we get some furniture. And that could be awhile.... I would love to get it all done over this winter. Realistically? Probably will take longer.

We shall see.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Shiny, the new place sounds wonderful!

My input totally pales in comparison to Carter's because we've only redone one space in our home so far, and I am so not a PowerPoint person!

However, I will share our master closet, since that is the only one we've done. It was our Christmas present to ourselves two years ago, and we are thrilled with it.

We had a company do the work because it's a tricky space -- angled ceilings, a beam running through it, and not huge, so we wanted to really maximize the vertical space as much as possible. My husband is very tall, too, so it was good to really work through the logistics of heights for each side of the closet (my upper rail is lower than his, but I have more space above to store out of season and infrequently used things.

Pics are not the best, but it's hard to get wide angle shots in the small space. 1-2 are before pics. I hated the 25yo wire shelves and they were starting to pull out of the wall.

We chose light wood because the closet tends to be dark. I also changed out the light fixture to a small track light that would help cast some light into the dim back of the closet behind the wood beam.

I am very glad I chose shelves instead of cubbies for shoes. Most of the shelves are movable, and most of my shoes are either booties or sandals, so this arrangement gives me lots of flexibility as my needs change.

Hubs got a few drawers on his side, but I just wanted open shelving. My socks and pjs, etc, are in a separate dresser in the bedroom.

We left a little space on my husband's side of the closet for the laundry hamper. There is no good place for it in our bedroom or bath, so it works out really well there.

I've moved things around a little since these pics were taken when we first had the work done, but it is still working beautifully for us.

Oh, and ditto to loving the valet bars! We also have two sliding rails on the back of the side wall shelving -- my husband's holds his belts, and mine holds tote bags that store easier hanging than sitting. I store my belts on the inside of the closet door (just a couple of racks from Target, nothing fancy) -- taking that photo made me realize that it's time to edit the belt collection.

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Janet

(website)

Veteran

I neglected to share the name of the company who did our closet. It was Closet America, and I think they are limited to the mid-Atlantic. I got quotes from three companies, but I went with CA because the rep did the most thoughtful design of the three, and also because I was impressed with the quality of the hardware and materials they used. The rep brought samples of the shelving and fasteners when we met, so I could see that they were not cheap, splintery particleboard and plastic fasteners. I think details like that are important for the long-term. We could have done it cheaper, but I wanted this solution to last as long as the house does. CA also has a warranty for their work for the life of the home, even if the owner changes.

rachylou

Veteran

Shallow drawers for unmentionables and silky things!

shiny

Veteran

Wow Janet! What a fantastic closet!

Love the tip about the lighting and the lighter color shelves. Filing that one away...

Rachy, I totally agree about shallow drawers. I have that now -- my dresser has a shallow drawer that works wonderfully. It's a 1980s dresser and made of solid wood, but dated/traditional looking. (I at least ditched the trifold mirror ages ago). I have wanted to replace it forever with something less dated, but they do not make furniture like they used to, and I have not seen any options with a similar amount of drawer space -- including handy shallow drawer.

Karie

(website)

Veteran

I keep returning to this post to drool over these beautiful closets! If you wear dresses like I do, I would be sure to add a tall rack for hanging them.

shiny

Veteran

Yes, Kari -- I started living in dresses a few years back. I live in dresses about 3/4's of the year. I would say my closet at this time is about half tall stuff (dresses/long coats) and half short stuff (tops& toppers.) Then again, I don't hang my jeans right now, nor do I hang my sweaters -- due to lack of room. But yeah... I need a lot of tall hanging space.