Closet make-over

By mudlark • February 9th, 2010

clean closet ideas What to do when you have a wasted space in your closet filled with clutter? Wait – scratch that. It isn’t filled with clutter, it’s filled with highly important and useful items – if only you could find them. Now, if we all had thousands of dollars to pay a closet design specialist to do a home visit and install all sorts of custom-made shelving solutions it wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t know about you, but in this economy I have better things to do with a couple thousand dollars. So, closet design ideas, on the cheap.

The first step, and unfortunately the most often overlooked, is planning. Think about how you use the space. What needs to fit there. Where it should fit. How accessible different things should be. It should be easier to get to your daily use items than your wedding dress or the thigh master you don’t admit to owning. Think about how much space you need for hanging items, stacking items, and boxed up items, then find a way to fit it in.

Now let’s look at some useful tools for organizing said closet. First off is shelving. You can get simple wire shelving at any home improvement store, have it cut to size, and install it yourself for almost nothing. Or you can splurge on simple wooden shelves to give your closet a nicer feel (we caution against cheap composite materials though – the glue used to make them contains harmful, often carcinogenic and neurotoxic chemicals). Tension curtain rods also work well for hanging items, and think of hanging them in non-traditional ways. For example, in a shallow, wide closet (as opposed to a walk-in), use the often wasted space at the ends to put short curtain rods going front t0 back instead of side to side. It’ll give you a nice nook on each side.

If you have clothes of different sizes (we won’t call them ‘fat’ pants – we’ll say ‘comfort’ clothes), you can make department store style size separators out of cardboard rounds. Using same-colored hangers will give your closet a uniform look.

Also look at storage boxes – the small decorative ones, and the clear plastic rubbermaid-type too. Don’t forget about things that create ‘cubbies’ – baskets, old shoeboxes. You can repurpose your old purses to do what they were designed for – hold things. I keep scarves in one purse and gloves in another.

Think outside the box to use space in non-traditional ways. A few strategically placed nails on the wall can give you a perfect hanging nook for necklaces.

The key is, think about what you’ll be storing there and design around it. I like to take the pesky doors off my closets – especially in the kids’ rooms – and replace them with pretty fabric hung on tension shower rods. No more open doors getting in the way of precious floor space.

Those are some of my strategies to optimize storage space. What are yours?