Shana Velador was tired of clutter and wasted space. Her shoes
were littered across the floor of her Hollister home’s walk-in
closet, and there was no space in the house to store her photo
boxes, much less the growing collection of clothing, toys and
accessories her young daughters were amassing.
Shana Velador was tired of clutter and wasted space. Her shoes were littered across the floor of her Hollister home’s walk-in closet, and there was no space in the house to store her photo boxes, much less the growing collection of clothing, toys and accessories her young daughters were amassing.
“We just had a shelf and rod, and your standard closet storage units that you purchase for yourself at Target,” said Velador, who talked with her husband and decided to hire a professional.
The closet may be one of the areas of a home most unseen by guests, hence its popularity, along with the underside of the bed, as a last-minute place to throw things before company arrives. A little bit of organization, though, can help owners to organize, display, care for and keep track of their possessions, according to Jurgen Lorenz, owner of Blue Moon Closet Systems in Pacifica, Calif.
Lorenz, who founded Blue Moon in 1995, likes to see a family’s closets at their messiest.
“That tells you what they need, what you’ll need to work with,” said Lorenz. “The corners are always a problem when you have wire shelving because they’re not useable, so we look at that, and we look at the kinds of things you have hanging.”
Most closets contain a single row of shelving and a hanging rod, but most people don’t actually need all the space that a single rod provides for hanging long garments below, said Eric Von Urff, owner of Von Urff Eurostyle Cabinet in Hollister.
“For kids, or even for women with a lot of short blouses and skirts, you can even get three rows in an eight-foot closet,” said Von Urff. “That leaves more room for drawer space, folded clothes and shoes.”
For high-ceilinged closets, ceiling-mounted pull-down rods can also be installed to maximize space, said Von Urff, but most people overuse their clothing rods, said Lorenz.
T-shirts and sweaters are not meant to be hung, and should instead be folded onto display shelves, said Lorenz. And display, he emphasized, is a vital part of organization when it comes to closets.
“Normally, we wear 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time because we don’t see what we have hanging there,” said Lorenz. “When you display your clothing, you go in there and see all of your clothes, so you’re much more likely to use more of them.”
Lorenz tries to limit drawer space to the storage of socks, underwear and lingerie, focusing instead on drawing the eye to shoes, handbags, sweaters and shirts all sitting out in the open.
Homeowners aren’t bound to continue living in overbearing clutter. Velador said her useable space in the master bedroom’s walk-in closet was expanded by 50 percent after the remodel. Her daughters, Davin, 7, and Denell, 4, can cram nearly 70 percent more into their closets. It’s a statistic of key importance now that the family is expecting a third child.
Organizers can be made of materials as simple as white melamine or as costly as solid cherry wood, said Von Urff, but their basic design is tailored to the customer, mixing shelves, drawers, baskets, rods, racks and shoe cubbies to suit individual tastes.
“It depends on how much room you’ve got and what you have to store,” said Von Urff. “We did a combination his and hers closet where the woman’s closet was about 15 feet by 25 or 30 feet. It was bigger than most people’s bedrooms, so then you can get into putting in an island dresser or something.”
Installed systems for the average 8-foot-by-10-foot walk-in can start as low as $1,500 or $1,800, said Lorenz, but starting prices for large spaces or complex designs can begin closer to $4,000.
“The material is a lot of the cost,” said Lorenz. “That $1,500 closet in melamine would become a $5,000 closet in a wood veneer. In solid wood, it would be up in the $10,000 level. Some people insist they want solid cherry, but paying more does not affect the function. It’s like eating from a porcelain plate or a gold plate. It’s still a plate.”
For more information on custom cabinetry, call Von Urff Eurostyle Cabinet at (831) 636-7394. Blue Moon Closet Systems can be reached at (650) 355-2779 or online at www.BlueMoonClosets.com.
