Closets: Designing and Organizing the Personalized Closet

Excellent book on organizing and building closets.

One area in the home that never seems quite spacious or organized enough is the closet. Whether large or small, closets easily turn into jumbles of clothing and miscellaneous household items. In recent years, however, designers, architects, builders, and manufacturers have focused their attention on this problem. As a result, more and more people today are discovering inventive design alternatives and innovative accessories for optimum closet organization.

Now, handsomely designed and superbly illustrated, Closets: Designing and Organizing the Personalized Closet offers frequently surprising , often elegant, and always adaptable solutions to contemporary closet design. With informative text supported by insight from top interior designers and over 100 full-color photographs, Closets looks at everything from how to fold your clothing most efficiently to how to evaluate storage space and how to ensure adequate air circulation. From the kitchen cupboard to the luxury walk-in clothes closets, here are the ultimate ideas for personalized closet design.

The first chapter, "The Designers' View," outlines the modern approach to customizing existing closets or developing new ones. From creating non-traditional spaces (such as free-standing storage boxes) to streamlining the wire basket approach, today's designers speak about how they are adapting closets to suit an individual's personality and style of living.

Chapter Two provides seven essential steps to customizing your closet, and Chapter Three provides an overview of the accessories available. Examine all of the options to discover which are best for you; measure the space carefully, figure the amount of space you need (standard clothing dimensions are provided to help you add up space requirements in different areas of your home), then draw a diagram to make sure the two are effectively reconciled by baskets, shelves, hooks, and hangers you've chosen.

Professionally designed closets may be more costly, but the results can be spectacular. Featuring innovative and beautiful storage ideas from leading closet designer, Maxine Ordesky, Chapter Four takes an inspiring look at some exemplary closets. Illustrating the renaissance of fine cabinetry and cupboard making, Chapter Five provides beautiful photographs of designs by Interlubke, Boffi, and Missoni, among others.

Understanding that no closet is effective unless you know how to use it, Chapter Six encourages the reader to pay attention to detail. Here are the best ways to hang all types of dresses, trousers, and jackets, stack hats, wrap silks, store furs, and fold sweaters. Rounding out this invaluable book, the last chapter takes an informative look at the unique challenges of coordinating storage space in the kid's room, from accommodating the growing years to encouraging cleanup by cheerfully decorating with homemade accessories.

Supplemented by a complete sources section for all kinds of suppliers and services--providing closet planners with readily available phone numbers and addresses--Closets is a necessity for any person who recognizes that organization is one of the keys to better living.

Patricia Coen has been writing about innovative home improvement ideas for years. She is the author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Home Repairs series and lives in New York City.

Bryan Milford has written extensively about interior design in New York and London. He runs his own design studio.