If You’re Short on Space for Your TV, You Might Want to Try This Super-Popular Closet Hack
Early in the pandemic, many people transitioned to working from home and the “cloffice” trend caught on like wildfire. While the days of turning closets into makeshift offices may be behind some of us, people are still finding ways to make the most out of their closet space, and often, this has nothing to do with clothes storage at all. In fact, food personality and chef Lidey Heuck‘s home provides the perfect (and a really unique) example of how a small closet can make a big difference in your home.
Heuck and her fiancé, Joe, live in a 1,000-square-feet apartment in Brooklyn. A recipe developer and blogger who loves to entertain, she wanted to create an open, airy space for cooking, content creation, and hosting with great flow from one room into the next. Instead of the usual couch-and-coffee table situation in the living room, Heuck decided to expand her dining area’s footprint to this area instead. “I’m sure this layout wouldn’t make sense for everyone, but it was fun to try to re-imagine a typical rental apartment in a way that really worked for us,” she says.
While most people see additional bedrooms as an opportunity to create an office, home gym, or guest room, Heuck took a different approach with hers, too. She turned a tiny second bedroom in their apartment into a “TV pit” that essentially functions as a living room or den. You know how she made this swap work in such a small space? By putting the TV in the closet!
The process of a creating a “cloffice” (or media nook) like what you see here is fairly simple: Clear out a reach-in closet, remove (or just open) the doors, and slide a desk or piece of furniture inside that you can use for your essentials. Heuck applied this same concept to her “TV pit” by placing a low-slung media console inside her closet to put her television on. She then added a set of bins to the shelf above it for storage of little odds and ends. In Heuck’s case, she and her fiancé ended up completely removing the hardware and doors to open up the closet, making this installation look more like an intentional alcove or nook.
This design decision was also an intentional one in terms of function, too. “The room is a bit of an odd size, so we needed to get creative to avoid sitting about three feet away from the TV,” Heuck says. That’s exactly why the stole space from the closet; this allowed them to put the television into the recess in the wall. “And to make the room extra cozy, I looked for a super deep couch and an upholstered ottoman that would be a comfy foot rest or extra seating when friends came over,” Heuck adds.
Heuck was really intentional about making this space fit her needs by ensuring its design made it feel like a communal space as opposed to a bedroom. This is proof that if you have an extra room — or just a smallish living area — you don’t have to sacrifice floorspace for a TV. Look to steal space where you can, and sometimes the best place to do that — sans heavy renovating — is just by taking the doors off of a closet and filing it with furniture.