one of my goals for 2023 was to completely renovate my closet, which i know probably sounds insane considering we just built our house about 2 1/2 years ago. before this renovation…my closet was beautiful! and massive! like SO much space. however – when we built our house, i kind of just trusted the design of my closet up to our builder. we love our builder but like…how is he supposed to know the best system for displaying handbags or how many shelves i would need for workout shoes, you know? so my closet was big, and beautiful…but also not the most functional and had a ton of wasted space.
my biggest pain points with my old closet:
- i didn’t have enough drawer space. even though i’m constantly getting rid of clothes, i didn’t have enough drawer space for the clothes i was keeping. so drawers were always stuffed to the max or clothes would just be on the floor
- with my hanging clothes, about 1/3 of them weren’t visible because they were stuffed behind a corner, making them really hard to get to and impossible to see (so, i just never wore those clothes haha)
- wasted space with floor mirror – when we built our house i thought i would film a lot of ‘try on hauls’ in my closet so we left a HUGE blank space for a HUGE floor mirror. i never ended up shooting in there because the light isn’t the best, so this mirror was just taking up a lot real estate we could use for hanging.
SO i reached out to Rhonda from closet envy (btw – this is in no way sponsored or gifted haha she has no clue i’m writing this post and we paid full price for the closet renovation). i needed a person who understood construction & renovation but also who had an eye for design, aesthetic, functionality, and practical needs for a girl with a ton of clothes and shoes haha. and rhonda checked all of those boxes! she came over and looked at my old closet, i explained my ‘pain points’, and what i was wanting…she took a ton of measurements, and then got to work in presenting me with some design options. the process from there on out was pretty seamless!
the original design proposal rhonda sent to us was wayyyyy out of our budget. (like 2x the amount we were expecting to pay for this project). so we made a lot of tweaks, took out a lot of lighting, find ways to cut back…but still give me what i was wanting as far as functionality, drawer storage + hanging space. after reworking the design a few times we finally landed on one that i loved and that worked within our budget. from there – michael and i found someone to demo my closet, an electrician, someone to do carpet…and rhonda handled everything else from there on out with her team!
the entire process (from demo to full install) took about a week. i was honestly shocked how quickly it went! and y’all…I LOVE how it turned out!
my closet is now WAY more functional. we added tons of shoe shelves, more hanging space (that’s actually visible and accessible), and a few more drawers too (we added the island of drawers in the middle of my closet). i love that i can actually SEE everything now, and that everything has a space. so i think i’ll be able to keep it much more clean and organized now!
the clothes that are higher up have a pull down rod so they aren’t too difficult to get to. we also ordered this ladder from amazon if i need to reach something high up and i keep it in the corner of my closet.
a few closet organization tips / products that i’ve found very helpful:
- keeping ALL of. your clothes on the same velvet hangers is key! this not only saves you a ton of space but looks a lot prettier too
- these drawer organizers are a game changer in keeping all of your clothes organized and categorized (especially if you have larger drawers)
- i got this acrylic container for storing / displaying my clutches / smaller handbags and LOVE it!
renovating my closet was definitely not a NEED, but now that it’s done (and i also cleaned out a TON of what i previously owned) i seriously feel SO much better + lighter + more organized! it’s the best feeling. i love how the closet turned out and i’m so glad we decided to go for it!
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let me know if you have any questions about the renovations in the comments below!
xo Lauren
