Before and After: A Tiny Closet’s Redo That Makes the Most of Every Square Inch
Closet space is premium in many homes, which means that the space has to work hard to meet everyone’s needs. Great closets can fit everything in that needs to be stashed, but also are easy to rifle through and pleasant to look at. It’s a tall order.
Morgan Gomez knew that this closet in her home — used for her young daughter’s clothes and toys — was not cutting it. “The setup left a lot of unused space,” Morgan says. “Every day when getting my daughter’s clothes or toys out, it just frustrated me.”
The shallow closet was wider than its door, which made accessing things a challenge. And, Morgan says, “the ugly yellow only made it worse. It was very difficult to see what was inside.”
A change was in order to make the most of the cramped space. “Our house is small so I knew the closet needed to work harder for us!” Morgan says. So she started fresh, pulling everything out of the closet and taking out the old shelf and rod.
In place of the dreary gray, Morgan used bright white on the side walls of the closet, which makes everything easier to find. On the back wall, she hung orange peel-and-stick wallpaper with a delicate floral pattern that feels like it fits in with the style of the family’s 1950s house. “The wallpaper print was difficult to match up but thankfully the pattern hides my errors,” Morgan says.
As for storage, Morgan’s husband Bryan helped her install shelves all the way up the left side of the closet — a much smarter use of space than the old system, which basically rendered that area dead space.
On the other side of the closet, Bryan helped install two rods at a kid-sized height and a taller adult height. Hanging rods one over the other helps use the whole closet’s space, from floor to ceiling.
Finally, Morgan hung a cute mirror — also at kid height — and some fun artwork. The whole remodel cost just $220, and now the closet’s more organized and practical. “I love that my daughter has a cute walk in closet that’s functional,” Morgan says.
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