Closet Envy

You know things have gotten pretty bad when you envy the closet of an imaginary character. Make that the doll version of an imaginary character. Sharpay of High School Musical fame has a prettier, more well-organized closet than I have had in years. And I'm a bit envious of her ruffly handbag and pink "leather" ottoman too. And, yes, I can see she only has one dress (or is it two?) hanging in her curvy closet/wardrobe—which makes it so much easier to be organized—but that's not my point. My point is that her closet looks like that and mine looks pretty much like this:

Multiply this pic by four or five, and you'll have some idea of the state of the master closet my husband and I share: nearly fourteen linear feet of reach in space with an old-school single rod, single shelf set up. I'm embarrassed to admit how many years it's been this way. Not always so messy and crowded but always so inefficient and uninspiring. And always near the bottom of the home improvements priority list. Until a few days ago. When it fell down. Yes, that's what I said. Fell. Down. Finally succumbing to the weight of too many unnecessary things, the shelf and rod as one unit pulled from the wall and crashed to the floor. Inside the closed closet, the contents were squashed to a 30" high heap. Pushing the doors open against the pressure of all that stuff proved daunting enough. The excavation process was just ridiculous. That was a fun day.

Over the next few days though, we did have some fun and our closet is shaping up nicely into something along the lines of this, above. Towers and double rods and a shelf up high for long-term storage in plastic boxes and bins. Or maybe I should shop around for a vintage suitcase or two. That's pretty cute. It needs a bit of fine-tuning and a few organizer-type accessories, but it's already so much better than it was, I'm actually grateful that gravity forced our hand.

One of the details that drove the design of our new and improved closet system is the fact that we have sliding doors—two sets—on this closet. I'd love to have bi-folds like in the photo above, so I could whip them open and view my entire wardrobe at once, but that's just not practical for our space. I'll show you our fancied-up sliders when this little project is complete.


In a previous home, I hung double swing-out doors on my 6' wide reach-in closet (after installing a very efficient system similar to the one above). Not only was I able to view and access the entire contents at once, but I had the backs of the doors available for goodies like hooks and shoes racks as in the photo below.


And once, in a very tiny apartment, I had a surprisingly decent walk-in closet. Because it was a temporary rental, I didn't think to decorate it with pretty things hung on the wall or throw down a runner, but I did hang a mirror on the back of the door. A classic choice.


For a brief moment after our closet crash, we entertained the idea of breaking through the wall to the newly empty bedroom next door and converting it into a closet/dressing room/bathroom space. (Sorry, K, I know you've been gone only a few months!) That moment passed, however, when the dollar signs started ca-ching-ching-chinging in our heads. If I did have the luxury of an entire room, I imagine my closet might look something like this:

I don't know exactly what's going on with those slide-out baskets, but I sure like the way they—and the glass doors above them—look in this sunny yellow room. And then there's this wallpapered, chandeliered beauty, below. But I don't believe for a moment that the girl who owns this closet has so few items of clothing. Or only three pairs of shoes.

If I was forced to used dark wood, I'd most definitely accessorize with brightly colored storage boxes and use lots of glass and white paint like in the closet below. But I would never buy a yellow hat. Not even as a prop.

My inner control freak really likes the idea of coordinating my wardrobe with my closet system and room decor, but I simply couldn't live with myself if I let things go this far:

What I could live with, given the luxury of space (and dollars) with which to create the closet of my dreams, is something like this:


Click on the pic above to see the entire post Joni wrote about the home wrapped around this perfect, girly dressing room. As you might imagine, it's quite a house.

Those of you who appreciate a sleeker, more contemporary aesthetic, might prefer this look, below. And while I would like to be able to see the entire contents of my closet all at once, I think this is taking things a bit too far. Only the super-freakiest control freaks among us could keep this always-on-view closet in order. Though I suppose my well-trained staff could take care of it. (These are fantasy closets, remember? I can have fantasy staff if I need them.)


And speaking of freaky—or at least outlandishly lavish—check out these closets I found at Exotic Interiors.




Holy cow, right? And did you notice that they all have seating? Do you think that's simply because they have the space and so they can? Or do you think, just maybe, having all that stuff can be a bit overwhelming and that it would be necessary to take a break now and then from the pure sensory overload of it all. Probably though, if you're in a closet this big, it's just too darn far to go back out into the bedroom to find a place to sit down and put your shoes on. So that green velvet dentist's chair is absolutely practical.

Let's get back to reality now, shall we? Since I don't have this many shoes. . .

. . . or a wardrobe the size of Ms. Bradshaw's (I mean, Mrs. Preston's), I don't really require an entire room.

However, I do have sufficient closet space so as not to require doing this to my bathroom (but wait, there's not enough room in my bathroom for my bathroom so I guess this was never going to happen anyway).

What I really need is stuff like this

and this


to make the most of the space I do have. I thought about adding some bag hangers like these, below, but they take up too much prime clothes-hanging real estate. I will add one or two of those shoe stacker thingies though. And my handbags will live quite happily in the cubbies we've installed.

All of this introspective thinking about my closet and its lack of efficiency (crashed to the floor being at the extreme end of impractical), got me wondering about the rest of you...

What are the best and worst things about your own closet?

What would you change today? (given the time and the cash)

What does your dream closet look like? Go ahead, be a diva.

If you find yourself, as I did, "closet challenged", here are a few links to help you out:

Closet Organizing Checklist at Real Simple

31 Ways to Make Over Your Closet at Real Simple

Top 10 Organizing Tips for Closets at BH&G


And if you have a moment to read what two other bloggers have to say about their closets...

Tracey at Notes from a Cottage Industry wrote here about how much she loves her closet... and its contents. But she's moved recently so I hope she'll love her new closet just as much. And show us the crazy-creative things she does to spiff it up. Hand her a paint brush and she could work wonders giving Sharpay's curvy wardrobe the vintage cottage look she loves.

Janet at The Gardeners Cottage showed us her closet here. And while I may not envy its tiny dimensions, I do love her beautiful home and her attitude about living well and within your means and without so much "stuff". She would never in a million years have a green velvet dentist's chair in her closet.