8 Bedrooms That Master the Open Closet Storage Trend
While house hunting, you sometimes fall in love with a place so quickly you don’t notice what’s not there. When I realized my first apartment had no closet, I made do with a cheap, pop-up wardrobe that looked liked I never really, truly settled in. I wish I had seen some better ideas first (searches for open closets are up 126% on Pinterest) because so many clever people have fully embraced the open storage trend. We’re sharing their tips for making a similar setup work for you.
Holly of Avenue Lifestyle treats her closet as a capsule wardrobe edit. Clothes she wears daily goes on the two racks, seasonal items up in the baskets on the bracketed shelf, and smaller items in the dresser on the right. She says that keeping her items front and center forces her to be ruthless with what she keeps.
Can you believe Rachael of Made From Scratch pulled off this open wardrobe for under $100? Her closet works extremely well, not just because of the low price, but also because it doesn’t overcrowd the space. Adding extra touches, like framed artwork, make each part feel purposeful. Get this set up using really inexpensive shelf and rod brackets for under $10 each.
When I first saw Taylor’s closet on Urban Outfitters’ blog, I thought it was a boutique. How else could loosely folded shirts look perfectly at home out in the open? Taylor says being comfortable with editing throughout the decorating process and eliminating anything unnecessary drives his styling choices. Taylor made all the storage solutions himself, building shelves from basic wood and brackets.
Mandi on A Beautiful Mess gives excellent tips for planning out and installing an open wardrobe system—things like choosing shelves and baskets in the same color as your wall to keep the visual clutter down. She frames out two coordinating wardrobes on either side of her bedroom window to show you can make this trend work in any space. Mandi bought aluminum conduit at the hardware store to use as her rods, (cut to fit using a pipe cutter), because it was cheaper than store-bought chrome ones.
Like many of these, Shauna’s closet on Quentin & Co is incredibly renter friendly. Two garment racks flank a bookshelf and the fur rug acts like a floor tray to organize her shoes. A floating shelf hangs above. This is actually her dressing room, so there’s no dresser for smaller pieces, but you could easily add baskets to the bookshelf.
If you love a good makeover, you need to see jojotastic’s Joanna Hawley’s closet. She got her clutter under control with The Container Store’s elfa system, making sure everything from scarves and baseball caps to extra linens and hoodies had a place. All of it is tucked away behind a beautiful curtain.
Marcus and Alicia first showed us their impressive budget decorating skills on a Brooklyn house tour, and their closet caught a lot of eyes. Instead of keeping it against a wall, they made their closet system pull double duty as a privacy wall.
Chloe got a little help from IKEA’s Home Tour Squad for her closet, but there are tons of practical ideas here. The IKEA team asked Chloe about her daily habits and what items she wanted to display to create a system that worked for her. I particularly like how they used a mirror front for a bookshelf to create hidden shoe storage and carved out a vanity with a floating shelf.