apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Is the place yours? It wouldn't take anything to remove the wall between the two closets and make one big closet. You'll be better able to put some doors or those Ikea sliding panels on there as well.

With a little work and trip to the hardware store, you can add a full extra hang bar for out-of-season clothes and mount it to the closet ceiling using solid eyehooks, pulleys & cable (or good rope). Just make sure the large eyehooks are anchored well into the ceiling. Then, like raising & lowering a flag, you can access the bar when it's time for the weather change. It will open up your current space.

If you are REALLY handy, you could even suspend a light shelving unit for folded items in the same manner.

If you own, and if that wall in the middle is not load bearing you should definitely knock it out and make one big closet.

Regardless-
I still feel that the person who wins this is going to be a... dare I say, cheater (I'm not condoning that btw). You'd have done better if you "staged" a larger mess, the hour tour photos are most often staged to be cleaner and tidier than the home usually is. So with a messy closet. Call me a cynic.

Disgraceful! While your closet is a mess, it seems to be so because of the crap you have in it, not the function of the closet. It has solid bones.

A simply cleaning out of the junk (most of it) would create an organized and functional closet for you.

Not a winning vote.

Things that would be really cool to do to that closet area:

Cut holes in the wall, above the doors, and have enclosed "cabinets", which would occupy the space wayyyyy up above that is currently useless.

A rolling library-type ladder, that would be on a track to roll from side to side, in order to access those newly built cabinets.

The cabinets would not have to be small, like kitchen cabinets, but instead could be modified to be like a "raised closet" area, complete with poles or shelves.

Along with some kind of hand hold, think David and Im's One Space and their wall and hand hold for the bed area.

The exterior light could go, being replaced with separate lights for each of the interior closet spaces, manually operated individually.

One side of the current closet becomes primarily stacked shelving, for shoes near the bottom, folded clothing items near the top, maybe even slide out drawers, like ...oh boy...was it Lucy's loveshack? With a small portion for longer items, such as overcoats or dresses.

The other side, it becomes two sets of poles, upper and lower, for hanging items.

Not that I can find it now, but there used to be a mirror at IKEA that had a short horizontal pole behind it, that could be used on the right hand wall, also for hanging items behind it.

There's also the floor to ceiling pole in the STOLMEN range that could be installed (maybe)...dang, the pole would be too short.

Of course, what is needed, is to figure out what you have and how it can best be stored and work on a plan.

No, of course I haven't done this myself. It's far too dangerous to get near my own closet.

Wow, you guys make it sound so easy to fix that up! I spent the last 3 weeks painting one wall and changing the molding! That seems like an emergency job to me, especially the way you describe Andre!!!

Jennifer, I don't have cable, so the only home improvement show I've seen is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. A bunch of guys with sledge hammers and power tools and various parts show up at L&J's and after the commercial break, it's done.

Real life never works that way. BUT, having a master plan allows things to be done in tiny bites that will eventually get the job completed. Like Maxwell's Cure.

Some folks can get through their stuff in the closet fast, and do a bit of rearranging. Other folks would have to take everything out, to start mucking around with walls or new built-ins and have a mess for awhile until it's done.

Gina's comment on her own Cure was "It's the Storm before the Calm" And doing ANYTHING at all is a good thing.

Okay, if they don't own, they probably won't be taking out walls. That's also financially a big step. Possibilities could include creating shallow shelving all the way up that back, top area in each closet.

Not the most effective way of using the space, because it's hard to access. BUT, all kinds of things could be stored in clear plastic storage boxes of smaller sizes. Or folded items. Out of season shoes. Dress shoes. Books. Holiday/seasonal decorations.

Doing the double rod. Retail stores have those "reach to get the stuff up high" things, things on hangers. You wouldn't even need a ladder then. Just one of those tools allowing the access to the top clothes rod. Which is small enough to be stored in the closet.

Leaving the whole bottom area in one closet for shelves. Or, perhaps careful measuring and place dressers and shelves.

But no closet can be fixed until each person figures out for themselves what it is they really need. And you can't figure out what you need until you see what you have. What has to stay and what can go or be moved or stored in a different manner.

Wow! that is one ugly closet. The problem with utilizing the verticle space in this closet is the limited depth. I have a similar problem in my Miami loft. I found pre-assembled closet cabinets at a store called Speedy Closets and stacked them to use all my 12 ft. height. One of their designer helped me create a design where I use the top tier for less used items (since I need a step ladder to reach them).