Burning Question: Co-Closets?
We got to thinking about sharing with your other half this week, especially when it comes to your closet situation. Do you each have a side or do you have completely different closets in the same room? Do you have one of those awesome walk-in dealies or a smaller space with all of your combined clothing jammed in? Or is the man relegated to a totally different room entirely (I feel your pain, that was me until we added our Ikea built-ins to triple our closet space). No matter the arrangement, do tell. Because we can’t all have this baby to call home to…
And speaking of closet arrangements, check out how we organize ours right here (nothing fancy, but it does the trick).
Image courtesy of The Bee Hive
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Our closet situation is so funny to me. We have a total of 5 closets and 3 dressers to store our wardrobe(s). I actually can fit all of my clothes into one dresser and one closet (shoes, purses, belts, everything). DH has spread his clothes out into 3 rooms (3 closets and two dressers). After seeing your very neatly organized boutique-ish closets, I have added closet organizers to my list of To DO’s before the end of the year!!
How I would LOVE a closet like the one you pictured in this post! My hubby and I live in a small 2 BR apt with extremely little closet space. Although we’ve given a LOT away – we still have a lot of clothing and shoes between the 2 of us. We share our bedroom closet: each of us gets half of the hanging rod space, and we each get a shelf above the hanging rod that spans the width of the closet(he gets the higher shelf since he’s 6’4″ and can reach!) I store most of my off season wear in rubbermaid-like containers under our bed, and he stores most of his in the office (2nd BR)closet. Our dream is to one day have all our clothing in one room!
We share a closet for everything that has to be hung up, and we have pretty nice built-ins for the rest of our clothes. We are lucky that we actually have a lot of unused space as many of the built-ins aren’t even used. I try not to have a lot of clothes because I find I don’t wear everything enough (and sometimes forget what I have). Pretty sure my husband has more clothes and shoes than me. :)
I have the walk-in in our bedroom and he has the big closet in our guest room. We both have too many clothes to share.
Our tiny apartment only has 3 closets. So yes, his clothes are in a closet in another room. But he completely volunteered for that, before I even suggested it–does that make it okay? :) We each have a small dresser for our folded things. But I love how your bedroom is so streamlined because you don’t have the need for dressers! It looks so lovely and clutter-free that way.
We were very fortunate in this house because we have a hallway in our room but is is between the bedroom and master bath and that is where we have a walk in closet for yours truly and on the other side a double closet for hubby plus we each have a dresser. Now that we have to move, I have gotten spoiled by this closet arrangement and it is crucial when checking out other homes what kind of closet space we have to deal with.
We share. I like sharing with my husband!
Right now we have a small walk-in almost all of which is comprised of my husbands clothes – he has a lot more than I do mainly because he needs the variety of business appropriate clothing, in addition to his casual clothes. I keep most of mine in two dressers. The house we lived in previous to this my husband’s clothing got relegated to our office closet. We’re closing on a house soon, and that’s one of the things we weren’t to thrilled with; we only have a tiny little closet to share- since we also have a baby on the way, we don’t have the option of using the second bedroom for my husband’s clothes. I’ve been investigating closet systems from Lowes to maximize out space – we may even end up buying a spare Ikea wardrobe to put in our room until our third bedroom closet is free (my brother is currently living with us).
My husband and I have separate closets. I have a walk in closet the size of a Manhattan apartment and he has a closet in the tv room. I think it’s a fair :D
Ohhh…well, we do have a glorious walk in closet (not like the one in the picture, though!)…it is shaped like an “L”…and I have the loooong end of the “L” and hubby has the small side. My side, however, has double hanging heights, while his does not. (Muahaha! I love my end of the deal!) Our stuff doesn’t “mesh” at all, but my stuff overflows, thats for sure (I need to dump off at Goodwill or Plato’s closet!). We keep 3-drawer rubbermaid type things in there for bra’s, undies, boxers, t-shirts, etc…the rest of the stuff is hanging nicely (umm..semi-nicely).
xoxo
katie
Wow… you guys never cease to amaze me. I’m actually contemplating trying to do what you guys did with the next place we live (how you guys made the closets next to your bed).. but we’ll only be there for a year and a half. So I don’t see how that would work… Right now our clothes barely fit into the closet: left side for dresses/skirts/pants/shorts, the middle for my shirts and the far left for his stuff. Oh and I rotate my clothes via “seasons”. It’s either somewhat cold or really hot here in AZ. Don’t really wear pants in the summer… even at night when it’s “cool” at 90*. Gotta love the desert! I’m really nervous about the next closet, though. It’s so itty-bitty.
We are lucky enough to have a large walk-in closet (plus a separate “dressing area” with mirrored built-in closets which we don’t use), so hubby and I have ample room to share. I would love to replace our existing wire racks with something more sophisticated like the system in your picture above – but unfortunately there are a million other projects we have to do first in our house. Like take down some walls, flooring, windows, painting ….. the list goes on!
Our master closet is quite small, so hubby has that. Since we have four bedrooms and no kids, I get the bedroom across the hall as my dressing room. It’s nice to keep all my laundry separated, have a full length mirror, keep my jewelry out for display, and be able to keep the ironing board up all the time.
It’s so funny that you mention closets! My husband and I currently share (sep. sides- as IF we could co-mingle! :)) a huge walk in closet that is 8X8!! To die for, right. Well, we are moving so its time to kiss that baby goodbye. We are moving to a much bigger house, but it is much older, so closets are itsy bitsy. It’s okay though, the house is worth it. We just packed our bags, and did MAJOR purge in preperation for the much smaller closet space ahead.
this probably doesn’t really count because we live in Europe now where they don’t have closets, so my husband and i each have an Ikea wardrobe (just like yours, except with the doors) to ourselves. I will say…it’s amazing how much fits in there and i LOVE the customizable design…especially the wondey pant hanger that is on drawer rolls and pulls out.
I keep my clothes in the closet in the master bedroom and we learned long ago that he keeps his clothes in another room. He’s in the Army so he has SO MANY CLOTHES! He’s a pilot so he has flight suits and regular ACU’s and then civilian clothes on top of all the Army crap. I wouldn’t have room for all my stuff if we shared. He also has his own bathroom to get ready in. It makes life so much easier for both of us!!
My husband’s closet is in our bedroom, and mine is in the guest room. We have a mid-century rancher with the teensy closets, too.
It’s very funny – when my husband and I lived in our apartment, we had a walk in closet. We finally get a house and our closet is super small – slightly bigger than the original before you got the Ikea wardrobes (our closet even had the same white nails!). My husband ripped out the top shelf that was originally in the closet, along with the bar that never seemed to fit hangers below it, and we bought a “built in” set from Home Depot and customized – so now, each side has towers of shelves that reach almost to the ceiling, a long bar connecting between the two towers, and a cabinet for shoes beneath that…overall, it really helps maximize the space and looks amazing!
We share a more than adequate walk in closet now, but did the whole “honey-your-stuff-is-across-the-hall” thing when we were in our apartment and our first home (we moved out of state in January, and hope that we are now in our forever home).
We have two closets in our master bedroom, neither are walk-ins. The bigger one is naturally mine and the smaller one was hubby. However, the smaller one was clearly an after addition done by the previous homeowner, which takes away from the already small square footage of the room. So, just recently, I cleaned out my closet and literally donated half of it (which left me with about 130 empty hangers after the process). So, what we decided was to consolidate hubby’s closet with mine, and take back the square footage of the room by breaking down the other closet. We have yet to do it yet (the demo), but we are planning to do it soon as hubby had one day put several screwdriver holes into it already due to the frustration of having no walk way since the closet was in the way. I can’t wait to have it outta there. It will make the layout of our room so much better.
Even though our master bedroom is on the small side the closet is very large. The front part is my husbands and the back part is mine. Also we have a tall dresser in the back that we share as well.
We each have our own closet (don’t get excited though, they are pretty small) and I also have a closet in the back of our bathroom. My closet in our bedroom actually touches the one in the bathroom though, so my dream is to one day knock down the wall and make one big master closet :)
The hubs and I share a “standard” (read tiny) closet. When I redecorated the bedroom, I sold a huge oak armoire on Craigslist and bought a black wood bed and a couple of floor lamps w/shelves to use as nightstands from Target. We now have 2 rubbermaid drawer things in the closet hidden and use the closet only. This was after a major purge (your blog did inspire me). I would love to someday have a walk in. sigh.
We have two double closets. How sad to not have a walk in closet! My closet is in the master bedroom and my husband’s is in the master bathroom. Weird, but it works. In my next life I will have a huge master bedroom with two adjoining master bathrooms and two walk in closets. (Plus a lot of other things too!) You guys are amazing. Keep on doing!
We have a walk in closet – he gets one side, I get the other. We also have a dresser, but I only use that for off-season clothes.
We live in a studio and have an armoire (redwood, but painted on the outside to match the walls) that functions as an additional wall/barrier. It’s six feet wide and has plenty of space for both of our clothing. We each have a side of the closet, which includes each of us having a side and a large drawer beneath it. The open clothes hanging area is about 5 feet tall, so there’s tons of hanging, shelving and storage space.
We are currently adding an addition on to our remodel and turning the addition into the master bedroom. We’ve started to frame out the closet but I’m still unsure of how I want to organize it. We both have fairly large dressers and we still have the “old closet” which is going to be converted into a shoe closet for muah :-D. Do you have any recommended closet resources? We have the ability to make it all ourselves. I would prefer to use wooden poles and quality wood shelves and built in type stuff versus those silly white wire shelves that they sell nowadays (that don’t allow you to slide your clothes all the way across!).
You can see the closet framed out in the first photo here http://thelifeaccounts.blogspot.com/2009/08/remodel-update.html in the back of the photo (plywood sheeting part). We have the option of sliding doors or a single door, I’m thinking I’d prefer the single door to give more wallspace but not sure if this gives “the most bang for the buck”
Hey Jen,
Hmm, no direct closet recommendations except for our Ikea wardrobes and fittings. They really keep us organized. Maybe try Bed Bath & Beyond or Home Depot for something similar to install into an existing closet?
xo,
s
I have to admit that I feel terrible about our closet situation as I type this. We have 4 bedrooms (no kids yet) and the master closet is large, not walk-in but runs the length of our 20 x 20 room and you can actually step up into it. That being said, it’s ALL mine and this should make me happy, but it only serves to make me realize how much crap I have. I could really take a lesson from you Youngsters on how to reduce! The hubs has one of the closets in a spare bedroom and probably doesn’t even need that much space-he’s a definite minimalist! This is my new challenge to myself…reduce, declutter, and donate! Thanks for being an inspiration to us all :-)
Our new to us house has a amazing walk in closet with built in drawers and hanging space and a smaller closet at the back lined in cedar. It also has two dormer windows, which allowed me to put two pleather ottomans from target, so we could sit and put on shoes. We each get one side of the closet and it works out really well. It wasn’t on my wish list when house hunting, that the master closet had to be it’s own room:) But it became another thing to add to the long list of things we liked about this house.
I only dream of having a large walking in closet! Actually make that his and hers closets! I live in a 50-yr old home too so storage is lacking, especially bedroom closet space. Since I moved into my hubby’s house once we got married, I got one dresser in our Master Bedroom for socks, underthings, shorts, t-shirts and gym clothes. Everything else is in the guest bedroom closet as well as a large dresser in there. I also have some suits and coats in our hall closet. Everything is everywhere!
It will be a must in our next home!
I just wanted to remind you guys that your City Escapes post is up.
xo,
Yansy
We share one tiny closet with our clothes, then our jackets, coats, etc., are in our extra/3rd bedroom’s closet. We have a dresser in our room and one of those small, 2 drawer deal from Bed, Bath, and Beyond in the closet that my husband uses (because I get more drawers in the dresser). It works… for now! We’ve seriously been considering cloning your master bedroom to add extra closet space.
We share but it isn’t really a problem. Our closet is actually larger than our bathroom with storage on two walls, the washer and dryer on one (Having your washer and dryer in your closet is AWESOME! Unless you had to share but hey, that’s a perk of being newlyweds in a 1 bedroom apartment) and the other wall is open to the bathroom. McKinley has one wall and I have one wall, nice and easy split although my wall is slightly bigger. But hey, I’m the girl. I’m supposed to get the bigger half of the closet! :-)
We’re lucky to have 2 closets in our bedroom, a walk-in and a separate one with floor to ceiling shelves. Since one closet is more for hanging and the other is more for folding clothes, we share both of them. However, I keep overflow stuff in the guest bedroom closet and he keeps overflow in the office closet.
But talk about timing though with this question, I’m stopping by Target tonight to check out a sale they’re having on Closetmaid custom closet systems. If it’s as good as it looks, I may have a revamped closet by the end of the weekend!
In our house it is a bit complicated: Different closets in different rooms. My husband keeps his work clothes (shirts/ties/trousers) in the bedroom closet which is about 8 feet long with lots of hanging space. My office is right across the hall, and I keep the few hanging clothes I have in there, along with sweats and gym clothes (that closet is around 4 feet wide and I don’t have many clothes that hang up–i wear mostly foldable knits). My husband keeps all his gym clothes in the closet in his office on the first floor (he is one of those people who is up at 4 a.m. every day and does the gym in the morning–that way he doesn’t wake me up).
We have the standard closet, although it is a little bit longer than usual. It had the long, plastic covered wire shelf/hanger across the back of the closet, and you couldn’t reach either end of the closet because it was so cramped.
Finally, my fiance took that awful wire shelf out and replaced it with two poles on each side, hung the opposite way from the previous arrangement, and now we have double the space! We don’t really have anything that hangs longer than a shirt or a folded pair of pants, so it works great and we now each have our own side. It almost feels like a walk-in :-)
DH and I have a 2 bedroom apartment. The master closet isn’t huge but its adequate. We also have a full bedroom set (dresser and chest), so storage isn’t a huge issue. DH is still relegated to the 2nd bedroom closet though because I need a lot of the closet space for my shoes :-D
wow…am i the only one creeped out by the color corodinated clothes?
We live in a tiny one bedroom apartment and thankfully we have a walk in closet that we shove just about everything into…he keeps his work clothes in the hall closet.
I used to have a large walk-in in my previous home, we all used that, including my son. I also did the ironing in there too, I was able to keep the board up all the time so there was no fussing. Unfortunatly, I never did get around to using such sophisticated units as in the picture. But I had my own rail, and my son and ex-partner shared one.
It was always on my ‘to-do’ list to organise it, because it was in a dreadful mess.
However, my sons and I have moved now to a much smaller home. We have built in closets in each of our rooms, which are really quite small. I had to be very ruthless with giving our clothes to charity to save space. I’m lucky though as I don’t need to share anymore, which is great really because with all my clothes, there is no room for anyone else!!!!
Our masterbedroom has a big walk in closet that holds MY clothes and another seperate closet for my husband (all in the same room)… one of the reasons i love our house :) I also take up a bunch of other closets due to so much clothes/shoes etc… Sherry- i wish could be like you (less is more) but i LOVE my clothes!
When we first moved into our small cottage my closet was a small dark hole in the master and my fiance was assigned the guest room closet. When we finally remodeled our master bedroom we gave myself a walk in closet (every girls dream) and my fiance got his own closet too but at the opposite side of mine.. I love how it gives us enough space to get ready. And we can keep them as messy as we want. hehe
First of all, my hubs and I do share a closet and, secondly, we have that very same Elfa system you pictured, right down to the Birch trim! Our closet was terrible when we moved in 3 years ago — a 4×6 rectangle that was deeper than it’s width. Along one of the long sides there was one sad lonely rod. Installing the Elfa system (with the design help at the Container Store) was our very first (and possibly our last?) DIY project together. It took us I think a couple of hours spread out over two evenings to finish — and we don’t have anywhere near your energy or DIY skilz! Now we have double rods and 3 drawers along one of the long sides, hooks and a tie rack on the other long side, and a small single rod along the back wall to hang dresses, suits, etc. that are too long for the double-rod. We are very proud of our (albeit small) walk-in closet! It literally holds at least 3 times more clothing than it did before!
My husband and I actually each have our own walk-in closet in our MBR, which we lovingly refer to as the “efficiency apt” because it is so BIG. Our old house had the standard 6 ft closet with bi-fold doors. We are in HEAVEN with what we have now!
I am actually getting ready to do a major makeover in my closet. I have the paint picked out and the IKEA shelving unit, IKEA light fixture and totes for the cubes all ready to go!! It is going to be FABulous.
I wish we had a closet big enough to share. We have one teeny, tiny closet in our master. It’s my clothes that get relegated to the guest bedroom–go figure that the biggest bedroom has the smallest closet. We’ve been dreaming of adding an Ikea closet to one wall. Ahh, to dream–maybe one day!
Actually, it’s me who uses the closet in the guest room, but that’s because it’s larger than the one in our room and I don’t mind walking to it. The two rooms are connected through a narrow bathroom anyway (built in 1910; who knows how many times the layout has changed?) They could both be considered walk ins, but his is more of a-stand-and-pivot-around-the-three-sides-dealie, and mine is a longer and very narrow walk in. Though small, it has plenty of shelving and I can keep all my fold-ables in there (a la Sherry), so no need for any dresser space for me, that’s all him.
Our cape cod has three bedrooms, but since the third bedroom is pretty tiny, the previous owners turned it into a huge walk-in closet! They installed the closet maid shelving and clothes racks throughout. Granted it eliminates one bedroom from our house (which we will most likely change when we go to sell at some point down the road), but for now, it works for us! My shoes and clothes take up way more space than my husbands, but there is so much room!
My almost husband (the wedding is next week!!) and I each have our own “closet rooms.” I own a 4 bedroom house that is 84 years old, so the closets are tiny. I have a dresser, closet, and dressing area in one of the spare bedrooms and he uses the closet in the guest room. The bedroom closet is used for our fancy dresses/suits. Eventually we may have to consolidate, but this arrangement works quite well for now!
My husband and I share a 6’6″ reach in closet which has been customized with a California Closet. I have slightly more clothes but I keep my wardrobe simple with a limited color scheme. Having a well organized closet enables you to get more clothes in the same place. When we put our California Closet in about 25 years ago, it was $500, but it has made life so much easier.
Our house is a 1970′s raised ranch. When we bought it, the 6’6″ closet seemed huge. We live in the ‘high rent’ district in Connecticut so a larger house was never an option on our income.
We love our house except for the very limited closet space. We went from walk-in closets in our condo and apartments to hardly enough room to hang up your coat. So unfortunately my hubby has to go to our office (right across the hall) for his clothes storage. On the bright side, having a small closet forces you to clean them out each season!
Unfortunately, when we moved into our brand new home a month and a half ago, we had to downsize our master walk in :(
We each have a side, that is crammed full ( mine is of course double the size). Our off-season stuff is kept in the guest room, until we get a better closet organization system and can maximize the space better (read: use the height more efficiently!)