The simplest change can mean so much

Without a doubt, the one thing I see the most in closets is one lone shelf and rod in a huge closet. Even in new homes, there's one single rod going around the room with the ugly white wire shelf above it. The only explanation I can think of for it is that the builder must have no imagination, must not own many clothes, or must always choose the cheapest option; however, home owners today have to squeeze all the usability they can out of their homes, and a single shelf and rod isn't going to do it.

Taking that space and doubling it is a great way to increase the usability of your closet without spending alot of money. Today's homeowners have fewer pieces of clothing that requires that amount of vertical space for hanging clothes: i.e., long dresses, trench coats, or pants hung vertically by the cuff. In fact, most pieces of clothing can hang in less than 40" of space, and since the average height of a ceiling is 8 feet, then you can see how simply utilizing that vertical space can improve your situation.

In our business, we set the bottom row of hang at approximately 41" from the floor, and the top row approximately 82" from the floor. This allows plenty of room for clothing that might hang a bit long and still prevents a "bunched up" feeling when the closet is full. Now the old 8' wide reach in closet you've lived with for years suddenly has 16' of hanging space in it, and it doesn't cost an arm & a leg. With a wood product, I dare you to find another improvement that will be so easy, effective and provide a greater ROI than this!

Custom Closets 101: K.I.S.S.

In the custom closet business, especially in Northeast Tennessee, you don't see too many customers with the financial "ability" of Kim Kardashian; however, that doesn't stop the customer from wanting the same look, style and design of the over-the-top celebrity closets you see posted all over Houzz. If I could pass on one piece of advice in this respect, it would be an age-old acronym: K.I.S.S., or "keep it simple, stupid."

Of course I don't think you're stupid. We've all been guilty of overdoing something in our lives - at this point I think of Chevy Chase's Clark Griswold character in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, looking at his Christmas light display, asking his son Russ, "when was the last time I overdid anything?" The point I am making: this is human nature. What we need to do is step back and realize that what we need and what we want aren't always the same, and before the cost of a project is overly inflated with add-ons like sliding doors, LED lights, polished concrete counter tops, etc., we should all consider what would make the closet useful and functional, and strive to achieve that first.

Here's an easy comparison: in sections for hanging clothes, we typically make the side vertical panels "suspended," i.e., they hang on the wall, and do not touch the floor. This is an attractive look as we soften the corners with a nice rounded edge, and the wood material used is minimized, keeping costs down. A common request we receive is to take this panel all the way to the floor and "frame" the clothes, creating a box around the hanging clothes. This serves no functional purpose, only cosmetic. My suspicion is that a good number of these specific requests come from comparisons of our product to our competitors, who don't utilize the same system we do for hanging the panels and therefore must rest their panels on the floor.What is created in this situation is an increase in cost and time - more material is used, and installing a panel down to the floor requires the installer to spend time adjusting for rise and fall of the floor. (even in brand new construction)

I don't say this to tell you not to build the closet of your dreams. On the contrary - you should do it the way you want it the first time. Don't try to duplicate a closet you see online - make the closet what you need the closet to be. And if you have some money left over, make it what you want it to be. And don't ever sacrifice function for form.

Organization and Its Benefits

Most of us have heard or said a frustrated "if I could just get organized" statement before, but I'm here to tell you that it isn't as difficult as you might think. Like most things we do in our lives, we have to make a commitment to "get it done." And once it's done, there's a commitment to follow the process - but any old dog can learn this new trick and here's a quick primer on what organization can do for you.

• Save Time

Whether you realize it or not, the most important thing in your life is your time. Every second you spend hunting for your keys or digging through a stack of receipts is time that could have been better utilized in countless ways. Have you ever found yourself working 5, 10, 30 minutes late and thinking, "why can't I get out of here on time?" I'll bet if you looked back at your work day, you spent time inefficiently.

• Save Money

Have you ever ran to the store to buy something that you thought you'd lost? I think we all have. But imagine if you had a process for putting things in a specific place, so that when you needed them, you could find them. No more trips to the store (again time wasted!) for those batteries or pair of black socks you thought you'd picked up a week ago.

• Save Sanity

This is probably my favorite benefit of organization. Have you ever heard the expression, "a cluttered house leads to a cluttered mind"? Well, it's actually true! As we pile up stuff around our desks, our tables, our lives, our minds pile up "to do" lists that clutter up our thought processes. A clean, well-organized workspace can increase your production and give you a little boost of self-confidence at the end of the day - "my work is done."

These are just some of the great benefits of organization. In a future post, I'll discuss how to start and stay on the path. For now, thanks for reading!