If there is a Cobtainer Store or other place that sells ELFA near you, make and appointment and bring measurements and drawings. You have no idea how much space a system like that can create.

Hi Helen-

Do you share your closets with anyone else, or are they for your use alone?

Are all those closets for clothing and accessories or do you need to put other things in them too, for example, do linens needs to go in the hall closet?

The first thing I suggest is to decide what things you want in the closet, as opposed to what you can put in your dresser.

Some people hang up their jeans, others fold them. Ditto for nightgowns and sweaters and shirts and scarfs.

Pull out your tape measure and measure in linear feet how much space your clothes that will be hung need in the closet.

Decide how many feet long things need like dresses and how many feet shorter things like shirts and skirts need and really long things like robes and evening gowns (if you have any).

Maybe you need to double racks so you can hang the shirts and skirts, and a high rack for the long things.

Will you put purses in the closet? Do you have two? Twenty-two?

How about shelves for sweaters if you don't use dressers. figure out how many feet you need for those. That will be vertical feet for stacks of sweaters, and horizontal feet too, because you may have a few stacks if you live in a cold place. Or maybe you live in a warm place and just own two sweaters :)

(P.S. this is a great time to purge, purge, purge.)

Heck, I'm not clever enough to re-invent the wheel, there are so many websites about closet organization, take a look.

I realize I didn’t articulate my question quite right.

I am wondering if there are any closet gadgets or whatever that people find functional that I should consider installing now as opposed to getting on the aftermarket. In terms of kitchen and bathrooms, I have learned about the existence of so much stuff on these forums that I didn’t know existed like toe kick drawers or air pressure garbage disposal switches etc. and was hoping to make sure I am not missing anything I could have built into my closets that would increase functionality aside from the obvious.

For example, my closets have a shelf that is almost inaccessible because it is so high. Has anybody found a way that increase functionality so that upper part of closet is more accessible. I have put stuff I didn’t ever use in large plastic bins up there but once us there never accessed them since logistically so difficult to get the, down.

Last spring I reconfigured all the bedroom closets in our house. Our sons no longer live at home, so I had free rein to do whatever I wanted there. Initially I was just going to do my closet and DH's (we each have a small walk-in closet), but the project took on a life of its own!

The first step was to get rid of a LOT of clothes that we don't wear any more.

I hear you about those high upper shelves. There are some things a person needs to store long-term (not necessarily clothes- or closet-related). Tax returns? Baby books? Use the space for things that you need to keep, but don't need to see very often.

Or put things there that you change out twice a year. We have a summer bedspread and a winter bedspread - the winter one is very bulky. I put that on an upper closet shelf, out of the way - and I know right where it is when it gets cool in the fall.

When I re-did our closets, I moved a lot of clothes rods. In DH's closet, he had one rod, with one shelf above. He is tall, so I moved the rod/shelf up high - I can reach to hang up his clothes, but I can't reach the shelf. He can put rarely-used things up there (or I can use a stool). Since he doesn't have any long clothes, I built two shelves below his clothes, where stuff is easy to reach. My closet had two rods, and they worked fine, so I left them alone.

In both our closets, I had room to install a bank of shelves 2' wide x 18" deep. These have adjustable shelves, where we put jeans, sweaters, sweat pants, shoes, etc.

I configured the other two bedroom closets specific to our needs. We do a lot of camping (summer and winter), so half of one bedroom closet has no rod at all - but hooks from the ceiling for hanging our 7 down sleeping bags. Another section of spare bedroom closet has a gun safe, and shelving for camping gear. I turned one closet section from a 1-rod to 2-rod, for out of season and rarely worn clothes.

The moral to my long story is that the best configuration for YOUR closets is the one that best uses your spaces for YOUR things. Don't be afraid to think outside the box, and put things away in a whole new part f the house, if it makes sense to you - don't get locked into "this has to go in THIS closet, because that's where it is now".

Good luck!