When is your closet both half-empty and way too small?

[cimorene]

I love that Finnish apartments come with multiple walls of built-in floor-to-ceiling customizable shelving, really, but what I hate is that the standard size is way too deep for storing clothes on the shelves.

I mean, for hangers it needs to be that deep, but for clothes, you're talking either wasting half the space, or else the clothes have to be two stacks deep. In which case you can never reach the back stack without knocking the front ones over!

The result is that every time you stack the contents of the shelf they immediately start to gradually devolve, until each shelf is just full of a giant pile of mixed-up clothes that tries to either eat you or jump out on your head every time you just stick your hand in wanting a particular sweatshirt! The pull-out drawers are great for holding socks and underwear organizers, but not everything will fit in one of those. On the other hand, hanging all our 40 bazillion tees on hangers isn't very appealing.

It doesn't help that Wax does shift work so we're always sleeping on incompatible schedules, so 70% of the time that anyone's getting dressed, they're doing so in the dark. Try silently hunting through a mutant laundry pile stuffed in a shelf above head-height for a matching pair of socks in the dark. This is why I kind of want to swap the entire contents of the bedroom and livingroom shelves, with the wardrobe in the livingroom and the tools/christmas ornaments/extra books/cleaning products/outgrown shoes/dead electronics/cat carriers/gardening tools in the bedroom.

Comments

[pineapplechild]

The first place I lived after the dorms had no shelf space at all, and it wasn't really feasible to put shelving in. (attic room, weirdest spaces ever) But it did have a really long dowel for hangers going across the closet/small room, so my roommate and I just hung *everything*.

Also, how light sensitive are you two? I have in the past used those sticky push lights, sort of like this which hang in the closet and most of the light doesn't get out to the rest of the room.

[cimorene]

Nightmare! :O

Also I don't think that would work too well, unfortunately. I'm a light sleeper, and although Wax is not, she still reacts in her sleep to light. I do sometimes use a mini flashlight if I absolutely HAVE to have a certain shirt. :) On the other hand, those lights could be quite useful elsewhere...

[isilya]

I had that problem in my previous house, and used pull-out plastic tubs with wheels on the shelves, like this.

[cimorene]

Hmmm... that could work well, especially if I can get something with tracks or something so that the bins are anchored to the shelves.

[isilya]

Oh, well, it also might be useful just to grab the tub and take it out into the living room when Wax is sleeping.

I didn't use the lids unless I was storing my winter sweaters.

[cimorene]

Oh, true. Hmmm! I already have a small wheelie bin from Ikea (for the newspaper recycling): I bet they have slightly bigger ones too...

[viggorlijah]

Store boxes (Ikea has cheap cardboard ones that are sized about right for A4 papers) in the back for all your deep storage stuff so the open shelves left are shallow? The roll-out drawers are great - Elfa has screw on slider rails you can add to ordinary shelves and then put their baskets on to roll out. You can also get shelf dividers which are like bookends on steroids, long and deep. Those will break up your shelf into sections so your piles don't fall over into one mutant pile, but stay in each 'cubby'.

Or burn the house down. That's what I contemplate when thinking about storage.

[cimorene]

BURN HOUSE DOWN! is definitely going at the top of my list, but the boxes and dividers ideas are going underneath! I think that might actually work.