Closets are those things in your home that you never see, but couldn't do without. So what goes into a good closet design? I have to say that a closet is only as good as its closet organizer.
Let's take a look at what a closet really is. Closets are designed for many different purposes, and can be found in just about every place in the home, including the garage. They are generally designed according to their intended purpose - for example a pantry closet for storing food, a porch closet for storing shoes, a bedroom closet for storing clothes.
Regardless of their primary function which is to store things, closets can be distinguished based on their design. There are many different designs, including:
- reach-in closets
- walk-in closets
- free standing closets
The most popular style has to be the reach-in closet, followed closely by the walk-in closet. Free standing closets are handy when you have limited space, your living space doesn't have built in closets, or you want a custom-made but portable closet. They can also act as a piece of furniture, so as well as being functional, they can also be quite beautiful.
Now, as far as organizing your closets, there are even more options than there are closet styles. There are many companies that specialize in closet organization and closet organizer design, who will work closely with you to determine a functional and efficient use of your space, and then help you decide on a practical (or beautiful) closet organizer system which will suit your needs.
You may not know it, but there are such things as profesionally trained closet designers. Depending on your budget, you could go all out and hire a professional who will take all of your parameters - budget, space, decor - and come up with a functional design as simple or as elaborate as you could imagine. Some closets require just the basics, a simple wire shelving system, whereas other closets can be designed as rooms unto themselves, where the closet organizer becomes the primary focal point and decor statement.
If you are to design a walk in closet organizer, assuming it is for the master suite, you will want to ensure that you have enough space for the following:
- shoes
- tops
- bottoms
- suits/dresses
- accessories
- drawers
- shelves
Additionally, a nice touch is to offer a space for a built in dressing table, where you can store you jewlery and create a make-up station, a full-length or three way mirror, and a comfy bench or day bed. Extravagant, yes, but if you're going to design a worthwhile walk-in closet, then you may as well plan big.
As far as materials go, a closet organizer can be made of a range of interesting and different materials. The most common for built-in organizers is wood or pressboard with a veneer or laminate surface. A more flexible design can be constructed from a modular closet organizer made of metal. Lightweight options are also available in plastic, though you should consider the durability of this type, as they are often not built with enough strength to stand up to heavy or long term storage needs.
Bedroom closets are also generally designed with the most attention to compartments suited exactly to the items being stored, as well as the optimization of space. There are a lot of items that you have to plan for when thinking about bedroom storage - clothes, perhaps an extra space for linens, makeup, jewelry, undergarments, shoes, perhaps your workout gear and a raquet or two. Many new ideas allow for the efficient storage of all sort of items, including shoe racks, tie hangers, single clothes rods, and half-height stacked clothes rods.
Kitchen cabinets on the other hand are made specially to handle food, cookware, everyday and special occasion plateware and glassware, and other occasionally used cooking tools and utensils.
Bathroom cabinets will need a lot of smaller compartments for things such as soaps, detergents, toothpaste, brushes and other cosmetics.
Offices are a different story altogether. There are some office closets which actually house an entire workstation, which allows you to close the door and leave your office totally separate from your living space. More commonly though, an office closet will be used to store office supplies - files, folders, stationary, and perhaps you can add a shelf to house a hideaway printer connected to your wireless network for a handy network printing solution.
So as you can see, closets serve many many different functions in a typical home, and as many uses as they have, there are probably hundreds more effective, efficient, and just simply cool closet design ideas. Eliminate the clutter and disorganization in your house by figuring out the best purpose for all your closets, and then finding a good closet organizer to make your closet as effective as it can be.
