Tiny bedroom closet solves all her problems
June 24, 2020 6:58 PM   Subscribe

My hundred year old bedroom closet is neglected and haunted by terrible craftsmanship and I want to transform it into a smart storage space. It is currently inefficient and depressing to open in the morning. Here is a photo of the closet. The bedroom is miniscule too, and I want to make this closet the only place where this season's clothes are kept. Can you tell me what you, or Bobby Berk and Tan France would do?

Assume that the closet will need to contain socks, underwear, shirts, pants, shorts, and probably not shoes, coats, or long things like dresses. Also assume that I will pare this down to a capsule wardrobe which will change with the seasons and the extra clothes will be stored somewhere in bins possibly in another room. What kinds of shelving/drawers/bars should I be considering, and do you have any photos that will inspire me? These are the closet specs:
• Depth is 33" in *most* places, but not all. There is a ledge as shown in the photo
• Width is 33"
• Height is only 60" and there's a damn block in the bottom that comes up about 24" which USED TO BE the headspace for a staircase that is no longer there. Should I try to bust through it and make a new floor? (I own the house)
• The closet has no windows
• There is a door on the closet which I would like to retain, for insulation against cold and noise.

I tried looking at The Container Store (whose configurator doesn't really work for my dimensions) and IKEA and was just overwhelmed with too many options. What amazing things do I have yet to discover on my closet journey?
posted by oxisos to Home & Garden (8 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: It looks like the space is substantially deeper than is required for hanging? I would remove the damn block in the bottom and split the space in two - one side to be open shelving/drawers, the other to be pull out hanging space. I'm struggling to describe this but like this for wardrobes, so you can hang your shirts or whatever facing towards you. This could even be double height pending your needs.
posted by Wantok at 8:35 PM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Best answer: ...there's a damn block in the bottom that comes up about 24" which USED TO BE the headspace for a staircase that is no longer there. Should I try to bust through it and make a new floor?

I would absolutely remove the box that used to accommodate an intrusion from a now nonexistent staircase. After you remove the box, "sister" new floor joists to the existing floor joists to provide a stable base. Cover these new floor joists with a new plywood subfloor. Put down a small piece of foam “carpet pad” over the plywood. Install a scrap of carpet over the new closet subfloor.
posted by RichardP at 8:51 PM on June 24, 2020 [7 favorites]


Best answer: With a similarly old, tiny closet and renters’ limitations on home modifications, I stuck this elfa drawer unit from The Container Store on the bottom to hold socks/underwear/T-shirts/jeans and used the hanging bar at the top of the closet for hanging nicer shirts, skirts, and assorted stuff that I didn’t want to fold. It was narrow enough that the drawers fit through the door frame, and I bought a couple of little matching wire baskets to hang on one side to make use of the additional horizontal space for belts, scarves, gloves, and other miscellany. I used the 6-8” of space on the non-basket side of the drawer unit to hang a few long things.

Definitely get rid of the box. Depending on the size of your clothes and ceiling height, you might have space for a shelf or two above the hanging bar even with a drawer unit on the bottom.

Memail me if a picture would help and I’ll try to find one.
posted by A Blue Moon at 9:30 PM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I found a similar picture on the internet - like this only half as wide so there was only space for one “wide” drawer set on the bottom.
posted by A Blue Moon at 9:39 PM on June 24, 2020


Best answer: Keep the solid boards for shelves. Those wire shelves are not great - they'll bend if there's too much weight put on them, small things slip between the wires, it's hard to slide items over to the right or left if they're on one of those, they're hard to clean when they inevitably get grubby over the years, etc. The wooden board supported by wall-hung supports system, that you have now, can hold a ton of weight and will last and look good if you add another shelf or two, and you can re-paint it if you want a different color scheme.

If you remove the block on the bottom -- which is a good idea -- make sure the floor you install is structural. You don't want an unsuspecting person falling through the floor in 10-20 years because they expected real floor and there's only a flimsy piece of plywood.

*** If it were me, I'd start by actually looking at the stuff I want to store in there and figuring out the exact minimum dimensions of their individual storage areas.

Estimate heights for different areas that added up to the total interior height of the closet, then start making groups of shirts, underwear, etc., and see how they would fit into those heights.

For the underwear and socks, and maybe a sweater, you could get or imagine a box about the size of a drawer of the right height, and see if you could fit what you want into one drawer or if you'd need two.

For the shirts and pants, I'd hang what I envision on the bar available, see how much you can fit on the bar, see how tall the items are when they're hanging -- and see if I could fit everything on one bar, or if I'd need a top bar and a bottom bar. See if you can reach high enough to make a second, top bar work well for you given the heights of the clothes. You can move the bars to whatever heights you want -- maybe your clothes will fit better after you remove the bottom block, maybe you're petite and don't want to have to use a stepstool forever, etc.
posted by amtho at 3:50 AM on June 25, 2020


Best answer: I like putting a dresser instead of shelving in the closet, drawers make it easier to get stuff out, they’re sturdier than shelves. Definitely expand the space if that’s within scope.

Marie Kondo has good advice for fitting a lot of stuff in a closet in an organized way, pictures of kondo-ized drawers and closets will probably show you most of the tips.
posted by momus_window at 7:52 AM on June 25, 2020


Best answer: The Container Store can help you design exactly what you need if you can visit a local store and work with one of their Elfa designers. Bring your closet dimensions (minus the darn box) and an estimate of how much and the types of clothing you want to store. When I worked at The Container Store, I loved challenges like this.
posted by Joleta at 6:54 PM on June 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks people, I hadn't thought of any of those things. Marking everyone as best!
posted by oxisos at 11:14 AM on June 27, 2020


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