I’m working on planning a remodeling projects which involved moving around much of the bottom floor layout of my house. I’m looking at a 16x8 block of space the architect drew to be shared between a master closet (shared his/her) and pantry. This space is between the kitchen and master suite area. The closet is across a hall from the master bathroom. The hall goes from the bedroom to an exercise room.

A sketch of the current plan is below. The space is divided into a 10’6” by 8’ closet and a 5’5”x 8’ pantry. The closet would have hanging on two sides and a fairly large open space in the middle. I don’t believe it is wide enough to do any sort of island or even seat in the middle so that seems like wasted space to me. The only reason I can think to keep it is we are building for a plan to age in place and the wide door and open space would make the closet more accessible. Down sides are I might like to steal 6-12 inches from the back of this space for greater kitchen clearances around the island so if I can use the space better it is easier to take from the closets. Additionally (and importantly) I would ideally prefer separate closets (my mess can be my mess — we used to have separate closets and currently share and I much prefer the separate). The rare couple where I (the woman) am messier. And more pantry space is a positive too.

What I can see doing here is carving out a hall reach in closet for my husband. Maybe part reach in and part built in drawers etc along the wall . From my sketches it looks like we’d gain a fair amount of space in reconfiguring. I could even go narrower on the walk in and have shelves/baskets only on one side and give him a bit bigger reach in,

Sketch of my idea: Not clear here but his reach in would have some combo of doors opening onto the same hall as the walk in. Probably sliders. I'd probably do drawers opening into the hall too. Maybe it would be sections like wardrobes each opening right to the hall vs big doors.

Am I missing any reason not to do this? I wish I had the plans to my old house to compare to my old walk in. I want it nice but not crowded but don't need to have room for a gathering in the closet. And I do prefer the separate space!

Any thoughts on shallower for shelves on one side of the walk in instead of hanging on both? If I did this I could just let the aisle be wider or give a bit more to my husbands closet. I'd probably want 18 inches on the shelves so I could have Elfa Decor drawer frames for the lower part-- they install on the 16 inch brackets so I think I need an inch or two more than that. I’m not sure if once you get to that it would be silly to not just make both deep enough for hanging.

Is this the best place to ask this or in the Organizing The Home section? It is planning the space/ walls not just organizing the closet so I started here.