I don't have any pics and I hate my closets. I would ask your contractor to make the opening go all the way across the closet so you can easily get to all items. I have closets that have 2 feet on each side of the doors. Sure, I can keep things there I rarely use, but they are still hard to get to when I do want to wear them.

I also have some closets that aren't really deep enough for hangers. What are these people thinking?

Barbara

How wide are you talking about? And how deep?

I've always found shelves to be very helpful in closets. My last house had closets that were slightly deeper than standard. I took the side that was the farthest past the door and installed 12" shelves from front to back and put in 2 bars w/ shelves. Net result, I added more pole space and 5 shelves of storage.

If you closet isn't that deep, you might want to consider a colset organizer system. You can still do your 1 pole on 1 side and 2 on the other but have a set of shelves go down the center. Much more useful!

I have a 12" by 7" closet...very small by my standards. I'm used to a closet the size of a guest bedroom. We found the poles and shelves builder's install to be useless.

We had all the poles and shelves ripped out of all our closet in our newly constructed home (we've been in the home 6 weeks); had the walls repaired and re-textured. In the master closet I painted the ceiling BM Decorator White and the walls Pratt & Lambert Violet Echo. I then went to the Container Store and designed a Elfa closet system using the walnut and platinum components.

With the Elfa system, we have a 6 ft. rod on which 48 of my husband's dress shirts and 6 suits hang; 2 additional 2 ft. rods on which more than 25 pair of pants, dresses, jackets, blouses, skirts, and bathrobes hang; 17 drawers of folded clothes; 12 shelves shoes; 14 shelves on which we store sweater boxes full of knits, purses, hats, etc; two gliding tie rack; and a belt rack. I am amazed at the amount of storage we were able to create with the Elfa system.

We ended up using the system in all three bedrooms and in our garage.

Hi Cambreno -

Below is a link to some photos of my closet that you might find helpful. We live in a small, old house, and I had a wall moved over 2 feet to give me this space.

On the left side I have shelves that go from the floor up to where I can comfortably reach. I use these shelves for sweaters, and some sport clothes.

In the middle, I have two poles - one for tops and one for jackets and skirts. There is also a shelf at the top for purses.

On the right, there are two shelves at the top, and then a single pole for trousers and dresses.

The closet doors are from shoji screens - since there are 4 of them I can get to any part of the closet easily (which is handy, as you can see my bed is right next to it). Having the doors go all the way to the side walls of the closet is a huge advantage for access as well.

Next to the clothes closet is the "shoe annex". This was built with shelves of different height for different types of shoes - flats, heels/wedges, short boots and tall boots.

Across the top of this entire closet row is a row of cupboards that I use for off-season storage (I need a stepstool to reach it).

I'm fortunate in that I'm fairly small, so my pants/skirts aren't that long, my jacket shoulders aren't that wide and my shoes aren't very big. This really helped in getting this closet in the limited space.

I hope this gives you some good ideas. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted my stuff laid out, and even measured how much pole versus shelf space I would need.

Here is a link that might be useful: My closet

My closet is similar to missjulied's, even the shoji screen and the closet constructed after moving a wall. Shelves are a great plus, and also the two-tier and one-tier poles. My closet was constructed by the previous owner; I would have more one-tier pole space if I could and the shoe-shelves are either too tall or not tall enough. Great opportunity for you to plan.