Harry Potter style? 
2 Likes
We have two closets in our bedroom…an 8 ft long reach in that DH uses and a small-7 x 9- walk in for me. Originally my closet just had a single u shaped rod around the perimeter with a shelf above and my closet was perpetually trashed. I spent a lot of time redesigning it in a way that would work for me and maximize storage. DH and I redid this in a day on the cheap.
13 Likes
This looks great and is what I’d like to do to mine.
1 Like
The materials were $300 at Lowe’s. Hauled the dresser up from the man cave (1st life was in the baby/toddler room) planning to eventually replace it with something better but it’s the perfect size and gets the job done so I decided to use this one indefinitely.
There’s limited room for more stuff so I like that I’m forced to stick to a 1-in-1-out rule. (Full disclosure though…all the shoes I actually wear are in the garage)
4 Likes
H has a 10 ft reach in closet. It’s jam packed. He also has a tall chest in the bedroom that holds mostly swim suits, rash guards, shorts and pajamas. He’s parted with about 75% of his former work wear (suits) and should donate most of the rest.
I have a walk in closet that’s about 8 X 12 with a chest at the end, a dresser on one side, a shoe cabinet and a chair. It also stores a few bins of clothes for our granddaughters’ future use plus some gifts. I had just basic coated wire shelves/hanging racks installed by our builder and am still thinking about what would work better.
I’d like a combination of drawers plus hanging rods behind doors, with a couple of pull-down rods in addition to long hanging space. I have a significant body powder habit and need the doors, even inside the closet, to keep powder dust off everything. At the moment, clear trash bags serve as cheap dust covers over about half of the hangers.
1 Like
We have separate 6’ long closets that have a single door to each, so access is a bit challenging on the sides. Another bedroom has 12’ of closets along one wall and a 6x6 walk in. We don’t care much about closets but future owners could certainly decide to use the room with the most closet space as the primary.
1 Like
I have a walk-in type closet in my bedroom that is big enough to have 2 entrances. Some people have compared the closet size to the size of their bedroom. However, I rarely use it. I may go weeks without entering the bedroom closet.
Living alone, I find that it makes more sense to instead use my laundry room as a clothing closet. In the morning I take the clothes I’d like to wear out of the dryer. At the end of the day, I put the clothes I am done with in the washer. When a clothing type in the dryer nears empty, I do a load of laundry and move from washer to dryer.
I keep several different shirts and shorts that I like in the active rotation of washer → dryer, so I might repeatedly rotate through the same 8 short-sleeve shirts. If one of those shirts becomes damaged or worn down, I discard it and may (or may not) add a replacement.
My closet serves more as long term storage of clothes that I do not actively wear, which could be used as a replacement. For example, I have long-sleeve shirts in my closet, which I haven’t worn since before the summer. When the weather cools, I’ll add a pair or 2 to the active rotation clothes in my washer → dryer. By winter, the rotation will have all long-sleeve shirts and no short-sleeve. I also keep older clothes that don’t fit well in the closet, which could theoretically move to active rotation if my body dimensions change, but more likely is I will never use them.
2 Likes
I thought I had a big closet until I saw some of these! We have a large cedar closet off our bedroom. Roughly 12x6? With 10’ ceilings. On one side, I have half of the rack to hang my clothes. On the other I have some stuff, but in general I’d say I get about 1/4 of the closet. Most of it holds H’s collectibles. We have another good sized closet in our master bathroom. Maybe 8x5ish? where we hang our coats in the off season and all of my sweats. I have a lot of sweats. And also all of the linens. We have a LOT of beach character/souvenir towels that H will not let me get rid off.
The rest of our bedrooms in the 1910 house are pretty sparse. Older S had a medium sized walk in closet that also has a bookshelf and stored all the school supplies. He also shared the rack with younger S in the school uniform days because his room doesn’t have one, nor does the X-box (bed)room. The 5th bedroom has an odd (but common here in old houses) 3x3 closet built into the corner of the room. Younger S used that one too for a few things. But mostly he didn’t hang anything up
1 Like
Pretty much sums up the reason our son doesn’t seem to know why closets exist.
We tried to make his closet more appealing (before/after), even removing the sliding doors for easier access. Didn’t work:
Even being forced to keep his closet like this for four years didn’t move the needle:
4 Likes
I have closet envy. Perhaps house envy … I don’t have the kind of house that has walk in closets. Actually, I am fine with it, since it’s more than what I grew up with. But sometimes I think how nice it would be … and then I realize it would just be more space for stuff I probably don’t need to keep. 
3 Likes
This was my walk in closet until I downsized. It had hanging space for suits, long and short dresses, shoe rack, handbag storage, with a center cabinet for sweaters, underwear and socks. I couldn’t get that in nyc.
13 Likes
Whereas except for the pair of crocs on my feet and my 4 pair of running shoes down stairs, these are all the shoes I own!!! The black dress pair I bought in 2016 when older S graduated high school. I think Ive worn them twice.
2 Likes
About the size of a house shutter!
I don’t have any desire for a walk in closet. To me wasted space. I don’t desire to have enough stuff to even partially fill it and I can get dressed in the bedroom or bathroom!
2 Likes
We have a sloped roof without an attic in parts of the house. Because of that, there are portions of the house that can’t be legal living space (ceilings too low). The people who build the house used these to create closets.
1 Like
Our house is old and when we moved in, had one closet (reach-in) which was in the laundry room. This is used for DH’s work clothes, and our coats off-season. Current coats just have to hang on hooks on the basement door in the kitchen. In our bedrooms, we had rolling racks or a Rubbermaid shelf with hanging space.
When the girls were younger teens, we added on a main floor bedroom for us and the closet is maybe 6’x6’. Then, we turned the center bedroom upstairs into two large closets for the girls. This addition/remodel was the best thing ever for this house!
4 Likes
Pax wardrobes from IKEA make excellent closets.
2 Likes
Our 1970 house has a double closet with bi-fold doors in each of the three bedrooms. Another in the family room and a single closet by the front door.
We moved from a 1940 house that only had single closets in the bedrooms so it felt like a step up at the time. In the previous house I always used to imagine the original occupants, her with her 4 dresses and him with his two suits and an extra shirt and pants.
Since I don’t think H has gotten rid of an item of clothing since probably 1970, I let him use the double closet in our bedroom and I have a small free standing wardrobe. The opposite would have had me looking at his clothes everywhere and being driven bonkers. We both have dressers also.
And I have two large cloth wardrobes in our finished basement. I just rotate a selection of current clothes to the wardrobe in the bedroom. Fancy occasion clothes, rarely worn warm clothes (we’re in the South) etc. stay in the basement wardrobes.
That’s how it was for 20+ years. But now that the nest is empty I actually use the now “guest bedroom,” as the walk-in closet I’ve always wanted. Finally!
We have a small-ish walk in closet off our bathroom, mostly my stuff though shared with my husband. I have dozens of pairs of shoes (most in this closet, sneakers and boots and garden shoes split between the coat closet and garage). The less used and out of season shoes are in big boxes and bins on closet floor. The main in-use ones are in a vertical fabric hanging shoe holder. Only a few pair are in original boxes.
When I was working, I had to put “overflow” out of season clothing elsewhere (originally hung in a portable closet in the unfinished basement, then in son’s old closet once he went to college; now a few formal dresses are in daughter’s old closet).
I have one very small “walk in” closet circa 1972, which I share with treasures of my grandma (coin& stamp collection and ephemera from a film project I produced years ago) and once D moved I took over her tiny (think coat closet) closet for my jackets - my love has a small but more practical u shaped walk in which is small but we built it in '97 from what used to be a powder room…he shares it with blankets and comforters. I fantasized about splitting half the 100 sq ft office and making a closet but now that I’m WFH that’s off the table. My art studio (100 sq ft) had the closet transformed into a sewing nook by the previous owners so no closet there. Many rolling carts and bookcases for storage. I want a real closet!
1 Like