Make a place for everything
Outfit closet, mud room to use space wisely
Even your new home will dismay you if its entryway features a mountain of boots and shoes, and a jumble of jackets, knapsacks, sports bags and totes.
Poor storage design encourages mess and leads to frustration. Good thing there are solutions for the closet catastrophe.
The modern mud room
The mud room is de rigueur in today’s new suburban family home. Getting the most out of it depends on family dynamics, lifestyle and space, says Cameron Johnson of California Closets.
“Ideally you should have bench seating with storage, adjustable hooks, drawers, shelving above for storage, and a closet,” Johnson says.
If you have a young family, adjustable hooks that can be lowered or raised depending on the kids’ heights are necessary, because hangers are difficult for them to use.
For sports-crazy families, the individual locker-style system is a good bet.
“Each family member has a locker with different-height shelves,” Johnson says. “It’s great for keeping their sports equipment organized.”
Pricing varies for a mud room unit depending on the size, number of drawers, doors, hardware and colour. Expect to pay anywhere between $1,200 and $7,000.
The hall closet
If you’re making do with a small front-hall or back-door closet, you may have only a single rod and shelf, which renders it more or less useless.
Getting the most of your small closet means reconfiguring the space, says Charmaine Symborski, owner of Creative Closets. “You are limited by space, but you can do quite a bit within that space to make it more functional.”
The solution is to use the space more vertically. With the removal of the single rod and shelf, functional units can be installed. These consist of double hanging rods, multiple shelving at the top and bottom, baskets, even units with drawers.
A simple hall-closet retrofit will cost between $350 and $500.
In the case of the squishy back-door closet, use the staircase that leads downstairs to harvest extra space.
California Closets sells staircase cubbies that fit over the steps and are perfect for mitts, shoes, knapsacks or any other item you want tucked away. A unit like this is about $1,300.