Closets have always had a bad rap. Where does that come from? I am on a mission to make closets respectable. A closet’s purpose is not to be a messy catch-all, nor to be a secret warehouse of emotions. A closet’s purpose is simply to hold our things until we need them, allow us to retrieve and return these things easily, and to show us the possibilities; bedroom closets show us what we can wear, pantries what we can eat, and garages how we can recreate – without going first to a store, that is.
My husband John and I moved to Steamboat in 1993 and began running our independent “mom-‘n-pop” business, Top Drawer, a year later. For thirteen years now we’ve watched as custom closets have grown up in the valley. They’ve gone from being a new idea to, for some, a home staple. Once you’ve had a custom closet you can’t go back. It’d be like hand watering your lawn after having an automatic sprinkler system: it’s just not going to happen.
Closets are also, rightly so, becoming as beautiful and functional as kitchens and baths. And why shouldn’t they. After all, what do we do each morning and where? We have coffee in the kitchen, bathe in the bathroom and get dressed, if we’re lucky enough to have one big enough, in the closet. Why go from the beauty in our bathroom to the chaos in our closets every morning? It can’t be good for our peace of mind.
Unfortunately, not all closets start out even user-friendly, let alone beautiful. Over the years John and I have seen a lot of, let’s say, “closet monsters.”
We have recognized three basic types...the Room Monsters, the Built-In Monsters and, lastly, our own Personal Monsters.
Sound frightening? Really, they’re not!
1. THE ROOM MONSTERS
This is when the rooms themselves are scary. The closets are too small, too narrow, too claustrophobic or too painful. The door swings back on you, the light switch is behind the door (can you believe it?), and the clothes rub up on you from all sides. Or, we’ve also seen the closet that just doesn’t fit in with the house.
PROBLEM: Hummer House with a Mini-Cooper Closet
Example: Sheila lives in a house where even the foyer is much larger than her Master Closet. Upon entering her front door, Sheila’s home feels sacred to her. But then she goes into her cramped, dark closet and her peace turns into silent rage.
SOLUTION: Design the Closets to Match the House
We work closely with several talented builders on their multi-million dollar spec and custom homes. We begin at the blueprint stage before studs even go up. We ensure that the closet spaces will work both for the built-ins we’re designing and the ambience he’s creating for his buyers. Later we do a walk-through looking for poorly placed outlets and light switches or awkward door swings, wall angles and depths while it’s still easy to make changes. This type of attention during early construction creates closet spaces which will complement, rather than diminish, an already stunning home.
PROBLEM: The Case of the Shrinking Closet
Example: Gloria’s closet was originally going to be a nice size, but then a duct needed to go somewhere, and a wall needed to be moved, and since it was considered “only a closet,” guess what part of her house was the first to be sacrificed?
John and I are the only ones in our new condo building with an unadulterated entry closet. Since our condo was the last in line to be finished, we were able to see what was coming: a huge air-exchange duct for the water heater was placed right through the entire bottom half of everyone else’s entry closets.
SOLUTION: Give Closets Equal Thought
We solved our builder’s venting problem by having him put an extra door vent to our water heater instead. It met code. It was less expensive than the duct work. Now why didn’t the builder think of it and do it for all the units? Likewise, why didn’t the other Condo owners complain?
Thinking about closets the way - and certainly as much as - John and I do, is still not common. Right now builders and owners both can run the whole gamut with regards to how they perceive closets. There are several great construction teams we work with that have been giving closets their due attention for years.
2. THE BUILT-IN MONSTERS
In the old-style closets these are the ones that crash in the night: the lone, sagging, over-weighted rod below a single shelf piled high with tossed sweaters and handbags. In custom closets these are laundry rooms without a rod over the sink for the hand washables, kids’ closets without reachable hanging, toy storage or adjustability, and mudrooms without cubbies, baskets or shelves.
PROBLEM: The Reign of Entropy
Example: When we first saw Karen’s closet, dirty laundry was spilling out of her store-bought hamper, dry cleaning was piled in a corner, and the jeans she wore earlier were draped over a stool along with a cotton blouse which needed ironing.
SOLUTION: Give Everything a Good Home
This time, room size wasn’t the issue; organization was. We gave Karen a tilt-out hamper with door for her laundry, a basket with removable bag for her dry cleaning, a hook strip for her jeans, and a retractable valet rod for her quick “ironing.” We placed her shoes behind fences on shelves, her belts, scarves and handbags on slat wall, and her jewelry in velvet-lined trays. Karen’s thrilled to enter her closet now. It feels like her favorite boutique.
PROBLEM: Missing Pieces
Example: Steve hired us to do his Mudroom. He complained that in his old closet he regularly lost his hats and gloves, as well as lots of his time looking for them. Sometimes too he found items he’d forgotten he even owned.
SOLUTION: Get Rid of the Hiding Places
We gave Steve two breathable pull-out baskets for his hats and gloves, and an 18” wide tower, with adjustable shelves for his miscellaneous helmets, water bottles and shoes. We gave him 12” of long hang for his snowmobile outfit and long coat, 24” of double hang for all his jackets, and a few hooks for his camelbacks. We also gave him a slatwall with adjustable hooks for his ski pass, baseball caps, and sunglasses. Steve can see and reach everything now and is in and out of his closet in seconds.
3. OUR PERSONAL MONSTERS
These monsters are things we keep in our closets which no longer serve us.
PROBLEM: Too Many Clothes; Nothing to Wear
Example: Like so many channels and nothing to watch, Julie had too many clothes and nothing to wear. Her closet was a holding tank for all things past (souvenirs, so to speak), and all things future (when she loses or gains weight or when belts with big buckles come back into style). She had jumbled together what fit her now with what she hoped - or dreaded - would fit her tomorrow. Her sexy dress hung next to work clothes next to her bathrobe.
SOLUTION: Compartmentalize
Clothes that were her favorites but no longer fit her, were out of style or were just for special occasions went to cabinets in the back of her closet. The clothes she currently fit into, looked great in and she loved we organized by function into the cabinets in the front. Everything else she gave away. Julie now has fewer clothes to choose between but actually more to wear.
PROBLEM: Seeing Ghosts
Example: Jill’s closet monsters were ghosts. Instead of her closet holding simply a white blouse, for example, her brain was registering more. It saw something that was either: really too tight for her, a gift from her wealthy sister, or bought in Mexico at a shop by the beach. With these split-second, almost-unconscious thoughts came feelings: guilt over her weight gain, shame over what she couldn’t herself afford and curiosity why something so perfect to wear in Mexico felt so out of place here.
And that was only one item. The robe came from her deceased grandmother. The black dress she’d worn to her mother’s funeral and the flowered silk skirt, Jill loved, but she didn’t have the shoes. SOLUTION: Permission to Purge
Getting rid of things which house our memories and spark our emotions has got to be one of the hardest things to do. It’s easy to make excuses. We argue we’ll never find anything like it again - but we will. We feel guilty it was so expensive – so pay it forward. Maybe we’ll suddenly need it - there are stores. But we’ll never have the money to replace it - really? We honor our grandmother by keeping her old dress - not something more functional? We’re betraying an old friend - so let it become someone else’s new friend. We got these socks in Egypt – store them with the souvenirs.
Our purpose is to get dressed; it’s really not to revisit every memory and emotion we’ve ever had.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, wellness author and retired surgeon, believes that we get a major happiness boost when we release some of the negativity of the past through cleaning our environment and letting go of some of our belongings.
Susana and John Field, through Top Drawer Custom Closets, use their combined 26 years of experience doing closets in Steamboat to give you closets you’ll love. They know closets. They know what you need.