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The 21st Century Closet Solution
Everyone knows there is something very wrong with the typical closet.
For the complete story, click here.

Bedroom storage An Arts and Crafts style wardrobe wall replaced a reach-in closet. Using custom doors and AristoKraft cabinets, it provides three times the useful clothes storage - and is a whole lot better looking than an ugly row of bi-fold doors. Everyone knows that a closet provides truly terrible storage. It is usually poorly lit, especially wherever you happen to be looking at the moment. Clothes get tangled, drop to the floor, are seemingly always out of sight or reach. There is no good place to store shoes, belts or ties. It's a mess.

Reach-in closets, a largely 19th century innovation, just do not work well for the 21st century's more extensive storage needs. Just as closets replaced armoires and wall pegs, now it is time for closets to be replaced by something more effective in handling the great quantity and variety of stuff we now need to store.

Continues...
The Well Organized Closet For more good reading, check out the complete articles index.

We have always wondered about those wonderful, spacious closets we see pictured in designer and home magazines — expansive rooms filled with shelves, drawers, trays, and baskets on all sides, but containing exactly 6 suits, 12 shirts and one drawer of socks — all in white.

If all you own is 6 suits, 12 shirts and one drawer of socks, why do you need a closet the size of Yankee Stadium?

These pictures are all fantasy, of course. We don't have giant, garage-size walk-in closets; we have small walk-in closets if we're lucky and tiny reach-in closets if we're not. If any of us actually did have a closet the size of a gymnasium, we would already have it filled to the rafters with stuff.

Closet Clutter
We all collect stuff. Lots of stuff. And it all has to be put somewhere. It resides mostly in closets. The closet keeps us from constantly tripping over stuff. It is some of your home's most valuable real estate. But it is also the most under-utilized, unappreciated and least respected part of your home. Closet clutter A typical cluttered closet. If your's looks like this, you are only average disorganized. There are many, many closets that are much worse.

The biggest problem with our closets is the clutter factor — and the fact that most closets have a door. By shutting the closet door, the catastrophe that lies inside the closet is out of sight and out of mind, so we can ignore the clutter problem — until we have to actually find something, that is.

There are three basic reasons why our closets suffer from clutter:

•   First, we have distinct seasons in Nebraska. They all require different wardrobes: winter, summer and football. Everybody knows that bulky winter wear takes up many times the space of summer wear. Plus, we need a whole third wardrobe of red clothing just to watch Husker football — something that utterly mystifies folks who aren't from around here.

•   Second, we live in an age when fashions change rapidly by design. We like to hold on to the clothing that is so out of fashion that we don't really wear it anymore — just in case it ever comes back into style — it won't but there's always hope.

•   But the third and most dreaded reason for closet clutter is that a lot of our clothes just don't fit anymore. But we keep them around anyway (Because they will fit again as soon as the ol' diet kicks in, right?).

Getting Organized
There is only one way out of the closet mess: Organize your Closet. That's it. We wish there were another way, but, nope, there isn't. But before we get to actual organizing, there are some preliminary steps.

Go ahead and   very carefully  open the closet door and stand well back until everything stops quaking. This may take a few seconds. Just be patient.

Now, carefully remove everything from the closet. This requires utmost dedication and concentration. You are inevitably going to find things you have not seen for years, if not decades: your high school yearbook, that kayak paddle you thought was lost, and so on. These archaeological treasures tend to bring on bouts of nostalgia and day-dreaming. Resist these temptations and stay focused. Otherwise we'll be here all day.

Next, organize your wardrobe into piles. If you are like most people, you only wear 20% of your clothes and shoes on a regular basis. Sort them into seasonal groups and then further separate those clothes into the "keeper" group and the "may wear sometime" group. Then, donate the "may wear sometime" group to the Salvation Army or DAV. They will thank you warmly and make very good use of them. And you get a tax deduction.

This seems unnecessarily ruthless at first, but it will make your closet reorganizing so much easier and more meaningful.

Take out-of-season items, pack them into containers and store them in the attic or basement so that they are out of your closet but accessible when needed as the seasons change.

Now you are ready to organize your closet.

Making Better Use of Closet Space
Let's face it, our closets are typically pretty small. In an older home, we are lucky if we have closets along one wall of our bedroom — those rows of unsightly bi-fold doors. If we're not lucky, our closets are suitcase-size stuck in one corner as an afterthought by the builder.

When our houses were built we simply did not have so much stuff, so not much thought was given to where to put it all. Minimum Dimensions for Closets
Depth of Closet
•   Minimum 28 inches for overcoats and heavy jackets - 30 inches is better.

•   Minimum 24 inches for suits and dresses and other hanging clothing - 25 inches is better.

Height of Rod
•   60-63 inches for street dresses.

•   42-45 inches for suits, blouses, and skirts, men's pants, and shirts.

•   68-75 inches for floor length dresses.

•   30-35 inches for clothing of 3- to 5-year-olds.

•   40-45 inches for clothing of 6- to 12-year-olds.

Length of Rod
•   Minimum 48 inches per person in household.

•   Allow 3 to 4½ inches for overcoats.

•   Allow 2½ inches for man's suit.

•   Allow 1½ - 2 inches for all other garments

Distance Between and Depth of Shelves
•   Allow 3 inches between top clothes rod and lowest parcel shelf.

•   12-inch to 15-inch depth of lowest shelf.

•   12-inch depth of shelves above the lowest shelf.

•   Minimum 8- to 9-inch allowance between shelves.



Still, there is much that can be done to relieve the situation. Even a small closet can hold lots of stuff, organize it and make it more accessible when we need it. Most closets just do not make efficient use of space. There is more wasted space in American closets than there is in all of Arizona. (And the guy who calculated that out obviously had too much time on his hands.) Making more efficient use of that space is the art and science of closet organizing.

There are two main plans of attack. Hire a professional, or doing it yourself. Let's look at both options.

Doing It Yourself
If all you need is a shelf or two and maybe some pull-out baskets, doing it yourself is definitely an option.

The sources of supply are almost endless. All of the large home centers: Menards, Home Depot and Lowes carry lines of DIY-ready wire shelving and accessories. These are wire grids coated with an epoxy or vinyl finish that is almost indestructible. There are literally dozens and dozens of accessories available to make the most of the smallest closet space: drawers, baskets, belt and tie hangers, you name it. These are very easy to install. The only tools you are likely to need are a hammer, flatbar (for extracting the wood shelf now in the closet), screwdriver, 2-foot level, a hacksaw, sandpaper, and possibly a cordless drill. Photo: Elfa® Closet organizer A closet organizer designed for the do-it-yourselfer.

The first step is to remove the single shelf and clothes hanging rod. Spackle and sand any nail or screw holes left in the plaster and apply a fresh coat of paint. (Once you add shelving and brackets, painting gets much more difficult.) Then measure the space carefully to see how much area you have to work with as you plan storage groupings. Now a visit to your home center is in order to buy all the shelves, brackets and accessories. While you are there, pick up one of the free brochures that show how to install the closet system you just bought.

Use the chart at right to locate the new shelves at the right height. Cut the new shelves to length (follow the manufacturer's instructions), screw the mounting brackets to the wall, and snap the shelves into place.

If you have bought drawers, sliding trays or other accessories, they mount right to the shelves in most instances.

There, wasn't that easy! Now put all of your clothes and shoes back into the closet and admire how neatly they are organized. You might want to leave the doors open for a few days to receive justly deserved accolades from your spouse, friends, the pizza guy, etc.

Hiring a Professional
If the organizational problems are more than a few shelves and baskets are going to handle, or you are just not the do-it-yourself type, then you may consider hiring a professional to organize your closets for you.

There actually are professional organizers — folks you can hire to organize your entire house — or your entire life. They even have a national organization, the National Association of Professional Organizers that defines a professional organizer as one who ...

Design by Williams Ridout. Open Wardrobe This cedar lined wardrobe wall built into one end of a bedroom stores an entire wardrobe in drawers pullout and racks, all hidden behind painted cabinetry. "... enhances the lives of clients by designing systems and processes using organizing principles and through transferring organizing skills."
And there you have it: the professional organizer.

For your closet, however, such large-calibre assistance may not be needed. What you do need is a firm that designs and builds storage organizing systems.

Franchise Closet System Providers
Closet organizing is big business, and almost all of the national chains like Closet Masters, California Closets, and ClosetMaid all have local franchises in our area. And they are very good at what they do.

Open Wardrobe A masterful closet for an Arts & Crafts home, carefully tucked under the eaves in otherwise useless space. What they do is provide you with a modular closet organizing system made of vinyl or epoxy coated wire (yes, the same stuff you can get at Home Depot), or laminated particle board. Typically the laminate is Melamine®, but some also offer high-pressure laminates like Formica®, which is usually patterned to look like wood grain. (You do know that the "oak look" is not really oak, it's paper veneer printed to look like oak.)

Shoe Storage Options
Closet shoe storage All shoes are instantly visible in our open-front slant-shelf shoe cabinet — no digging through boxes or under clothes to find just the right pair.

This is just one option for storing shoes. We have many others including shoe drawers, pull-out shoe trays and shoe cubbies. They offer
     1. Free in-home consultation,
     2. Free design,
     3. Free delivery, and
     4. Free installation.

We differ from these franchise providers in that we provide all of the above

plus

     5. Customization to a degree that the franchise companies cannot provide,
     6. Real wood or cabinet-grade plywood instead of particleboard,
     7. An innovative, state-of-the-art design service that goes beyond looking merely at the closet (see more below), and
     8. A three year warranty. (Try to get that out of the other guys).

And — now, here's the best part — we do all this extra stuff for less money than they charge.

How can we do that? Very easy. They are franchises and pay big franchise fees. We don't. They order their materials from distant places, paying lots of shipping charges. We buy ours here. They maintain large, expensive showrooms. We don't, so we don't need to pass on that large overhead expense. See? Wasn't that easy?

What are some of the modern closet's most requested features?
SeatingWith no place to sit - chair, bench or window seat - putting on hose or shoes is unnecessarily difficult.

LightingA window or skylight may not be feasible, but bright lights that show true colors help you see what you are picking out. Note carefully however that exposed bulbs in a closet are a fire hazard and are strictly governed by building codes. Consider "daylight" fluorescents as an alternative.

MediaWith a radio or flat screen TV you can keep current while getting dressed.

Wash BasinAn idea that is increasingly popular is a make-up sink in the dressing area — away from the steam and fog of the shower. Where's My Belt
Closet belt storage A question you will never have to ask with our hefty pull-out belt organizer. We also differ considerably from those "other guys" since we can deliver broader solutions than merely outfitting your closets with organizer modules. We can look at all of your storage requirements and suggest solutions outside as well as inside the closet. And, if your storage problems are best solved by better closet organization, we can build systems to exactly fit your situation. We are not limited to whatever storage modules the factory happens to provide.

Our Design Process
The scope of our design process is much more expansive. Our "closet" design does not start with your closet. It looks at your storage situation as a whole. If you have, for instance, ample drawer space in a chest or bureau, you don't need much drawer space in your closet. If you have lots of suits, we need to organize your closet differently than if your ordinarily wear jeans to work. Does your closet have interior lighting or does it rely on room lights. This will have an effect on the materials we use — or we may suggest you install a light.

Why Put Up With This? Closet clutter
When for about the cost of a closet full of organizers, you wan have this Wardrobe Wall Rendering We look at your closet doors. Doors provide marvelous storage opportunities. The best doors, if you have room, are swinging closet doors, because you can hang organizers on them. These swing out into the room to you when you open the door — very handy. They also allow the most access to reach-in closets. The next best are bi-folds, and finally sliding doors. Sliding doors permit access to only one side of a closet at a time — not good. You spend a lot of time moving the doors back and forth to reach stuff. If you do not have swinging doors, and you have space for them. We generally recommend you replace your bi-fold or sliders with swinging doors. That's an automatic 20-25% addition to your effective closet space. And it's actually not very costly to replace the doors.

Finally, at long last, we look at your closet.

The standard American closet is a small room the same height as the rest of your bedroom enclosed by a standard height door. This arrangement does not allow good access to the top of the closet — as anyone who has ever tried to retrieve a box from the closet shelf well knows. Closets are the traditional storage option for clothing because (1) they are inexpensive to build (2) they can be made to work with careful design and (3) well, they're traditional.

But maybe a non-traditional storage solution would work better for you. Imagine opening up your closet from floor to ceiling, then take a look at the space and visualize how it might be better used. Here's a radical idea — let's get rid of the closet altogether and replace it with a wardrobe wall. Built-in cabinets hold all of your hanging items. Built-in drawers with specialized organizers hold everything else.

But if what you need is organization in your current closet, we take measurements, discuss with you your storage needs and expectations, and go back to the office and prepare up to three different closet designs. Once that's done and you have selected one, we order the materials, fabricate what we need to fabricate, and put it in. The fabrication generally takes place in our shop, and the installation usually requires about a day.

Once it's finished, might want to leave the closet doors open for a few days to receive justly deserved accolades from friends, the pizza guy, etc.

Contact Us for Your New Closet — and the Beginning of Your New, Well-Organized Life
If you are convinced by now that StarCraft Custom Builders is the proper choice to help you organize your closets and other storage needs, please contact us. We will be happy to help. Otherwise, please read on.

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