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Making Better Use of Closet Space
Material from this article was featured in Her Home Magazine.
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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.
The Classic Maple Tie Drawer
Storage for the guy with 'way too many ties.
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.
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 an average closet than in Arizona. 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
A closet organizer for the do-it-yourselfer. Photo courtesy Elfa®.
Standard 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 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 rods and first shelf.
• 12-inch to 15-inch depth of first shelf.
• 12-inch depth of second shelf.
• Minimum 8- to 9-inch allowance between shelves.
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.
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 ...
"... enhances the lives of clients by designing systems and processes using organizing principles and through transferring organizing skills."
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
There are others, of course. In fact, there are many others. 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.
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 laminated paper printed to look like oak.)
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 modular 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)
8. Genuine Nebraska aromatic red cedar (also see below), and
9. A three year warranty. (Try to get that out of the other guys).
And — 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?
Seating — With no place to sit - chair, bench or window seat - putting on hose or shoes is unnecessarily difficult.
Lighting — A 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.
Media — With a radio or flat screen TV you can keep current while getting dressed.
Wash Basin — An idea that is increasingly popular is a make-up sink in the dressing area — away from the steam and fog of the shower.
Effective 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.
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.
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.
Where's My Belt
A question you will never have to ask with our handy pull-out belt organizer.
Finally we look at your closet.
The standard American closet is a small room the same height as the rest of your room 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.
Nebraska Red Cedar Closet Linings
A closet lined with aromatic red cedar. Cedar's natural oils repel moths and other clothes-eating insets.
One other thing that distinguishes us from the other guys is we use genuine Nebraska Red Cedar in our closets, they don't.
Most people, even Nebraskans, are not aware that Nebraska grows beautiful, decorative hardwoods. Yes we do, and in abundance. Take a look at Guide to Nebraska Hardwoods for Cabinetmakers and Woodworkers.
Nebraska cedar is especially nice for closets. Cedar has been a traditional choice for closet interiors at least since ancient Mesopotamia where it was once abundant (no longer, alas!). It has that fresh cedar smell that lasts for years, and is renewable (renew the smell of cedar by giving the surface of the cedar a light sanding to expose a new level of aromatic oils). Not only pleasant to the senses, the cedar aroma repels moths and other clothes-chewing insects, and is much nicer than camphor (moth) balls, the stinky alternative.
Of course, we usually don't make the entire closet organizer out of cedar, but we use it in conjunction with wire or laminate accessories, and for some shelving. We can design the whole thing in cedar, but it would be pretty expensive, and it's not really necessary.
Contact Us
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.