My girlfriend has this great storage closet in her guest bedroom in her basement. She was giving it a makeover the other day and snapped some photos for me.
Here is what it looked like before.
And then during.
She took it all out and organized it right there on the guest bed. It always looks worse before it gets better.
And then after.
She got rid of so much and as you can see she even has extra space now.
What I love most of all about this closet is the added armoire. The closet is already a generous space but adding the armoire (that she already had) gives her some inexpensive shelves for her to use to store hand me downs for the kids and gifts to be given. In this closet she also has room for her filing cabinet and the three drawer bin is her gift wrap/bag station.
I am a huge fan of adding these types of portable storage to closets. Anything from dressers, nightstands or even microwave stands work amazingly well. Not everyone can afford to add closet organizers to every closet in their home but these types of options we often have in our homes already or they can be purchased very inexpensively second hand.
I use an old nightstand in my youngest son’s closet. This photo was taken from our old house.
And this is his closet in our current home. I wrote about organizing his bedroom here.
I like having those drawers for his clothes “to grow into”.
Add a Dresser to Your Closet:
My friend Becky from Clean Mama uses a dresser in her storage closet to store her fabric. Dressers provide such great storage space!!
Add Cubbies to Your Closet:
Another great idea is to use cubbies in a closet for additional storage. Tsh from Simple Mom does just that in her boy’s closet.
Add a Bookshelf to Your Closet:
Bookshelves work really well in closets for shoe storage as seen at Fake-it-Frugal.
If you are looking to maximize space in your closet inexpensively then give one of the ideas above a try!
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Kemi Quinn says
We did this in our master bedroom. I don’t have pics of it but there’s this unused wall in our closet. The first thing I thought of was that our taller dresser could go in there to free up space in the bedroom. It’s worked wonderfully for 5 years.
Becky - Clean Mama says
Thanks for highlighting my closet Laura!
xo, Becky
Charli says
I just added an expedit I got off craigslist to my husbands closet and I love it!
It was awesome that it came assembled (and just barely fit in the back of my tiny hatch back), with casters on and four baskets included. Being a renter, I have absolutely no desire to invest in a closet system when we’re not sure how long we’re going to be here anyway. So, bookshelves, dressers, and removable storage is the way to go for us.
Laura says
That’s awesome! What a find!
Elena says
We utilize that idea in our home office and use the shelves in the dresser to store boxes of file folders, envelopes, misc supplies. etc. Fortunately, the closet is big enough to incorporate that, but it’s difficult when you have a small one