BEFORE: Wrinkled slacks and skirts

The basic walk-in closet involves a single hanging rod and shelf combination that is sorely lacking in efficiency. You cram your items in wherever they’ll fit, spend five minutes untangling linked hangers and shoving entire sections aside to find that one suit jacket. All of this cramming, shuffling, and shoving creates unbearable wrinkles, crinkles, and kinks in the clothing you now have to iron by hand. Not fun.

AFTER: Space for your workwear to breathe

When you reconfigure your walk-in with custom shelving, multiple hanging rods, and drawers, you’ll be surprised at the amount of extra volume will appear in the very same closet space. By maximizing the wall area, a good custom closet designer will be able to open up even the smallest of closets to where your clothes can actually breathe. You’ll never have to untangle another caught hanger.

BEFORE: Unable to find matching blacks

Walk-in closets can become dark, shadowy places where matching navy and black items go to die a slow death, never finding their perfect match. Even if you manage to keep your black slacks all together in one block, it can be impossible to determine which blacks really go together each morning before work.

AFTER: Perfectly categorized areas by color

With all the extra space you’ll have in your walk-in closet after a custom remodel, you’ll be able to easily sort and store your clothing by appropriate color. Add in some custom lighting elements and the black-vs-navy debate will never trouble your bleary-eyed morning self again.

BEFORE: Lost shoes in a mile-deep floor pile

Some of us have 20 pairs of shoes, and some of us have more than 90. Regardless, we all feel the temptation at some point to dump our worn pairs on the floor, in the corner, or at the bottom of our closet at the end of the day. One left shoe always gets lost (why is it always the left??) and we toss shoes all over the closet to find its partner before we can walk out the door, late again.

AFTER: A collection that actually gets worn

One of my favorite elements of a Closet America custom walk-in is the addition of adjustable shoe shelves. Whether you’re determined to have a Kardashian-style shoe wall or some corresponding shoe storage below each of your hanging rod sections, these angled and chrome-lined drawers can really make your collection sparkle. And when you can see everything at a glance, every pair has a way better chance of getting worn.

BEFORE: Tangled mess of jewelry

If you currently try to wrangle necklaces, bangles, bracelets, and chandelier earrings in some kind of hanging organizer on the back of your walk-in closet door, this is a solution you’re really going to want to pay attention to. Jewelry, particularly costume pieces that aren’t as durable, gets tarnished and grubby all too quickly when everything is crammed and tangled together. We all know the struggle. The traditional walk-in closet just doesn’t offer a solution for this.

AFTER: Protected and preserved accessories

Within the new design of your custom walk-in closet, you can include all sorts of custom accessories that will make your life easier. Install hooks that correspond with your choice of custom hardware to take care of those long necklaces that always get tied in knots. Add in one or two velvet-lined jewelry drawers to corral your earrings, bracelets, pendants, and rings into easily organized sections. Your jewelry will be protected, and you’ll feel like a queen in your own personal boutique.

BEFORE: Items stuffed into plastic bins

Finally, we understand firsthand the draw of plastic storage bins. Our clients depend on plastic boxes of all sizes to store their sweaters, seasonal wear, knits, or workout clothes– and their closets are full of these oddly-stacked mismatched placeholders. You spend every morning of your life pulling out a bin from the bottom of the pile and rifling through the contents to find the scarf or socks you were looking for. Your favorite accessories (bags, hats, shoes) are shoved away, never to be seen again unless you happen upon them by accident in a moment of happenstance.

AFTER: Prized possessions displayed like art

In a custom walk-in closet, your favorite wardrobe items are intended to be the stars of the show. We configure closet designs that not only store, protect, and organize your wardrobe– but we also aim to display your prized collections in a way that honors their importance and beauty. Whether that means including a custom-lit shelf for your favorite pairs of heels or a glass-front cabinet for housing designer handbags, we get excited about creating a closet that truly displays your personality (and your favorite pieces of wearable art).