When you?re organized, everything seems more manageable I?ve always fantasized about having a giant walk-in closet. You?ve seen them in the movies: full of shoe shelves, scarf hooks, and gratuitous hanging space for a color-coded seasonal wardrobe.
But my lifestyle and budget have never allowed for this pipe dream, which means that I?m left with a bunch of tiny reach-in closets and irritating sliding doors.
My storage problem became acute after the arrival of my two children. Our 1890 Victorian house in Denver was giant compared to my friend?s apartments in New York City or San Francisco, but 19th-century architects didn?t plan for a 21st-century family. We needed storage help, ASAP.
After pricing similar modular systems from Home Depot, I splurged on a custom Elfa closet system from the Container Store. My husband gamely installed everything himself, and together we basked in our new collection of drawers, hanging rods, and shelves. It was simply glorious. For the first time in my life, my closet wasn?t just a jumble of sagging shirts on leftover metal coat hangers. Everything had a place and we could easily adjust the shelves to accommodate different configurations. One Elfa closet became five, including designs for a toy closet under the stairs and a craft closet in our small office.
Earlier this summer, when we sold our first house after eight years of homeownership, the hardest part was leaving my custom closets. It wasn?t the money?none of our closet systems...