In case you ever found yourself wondering why it helps to hire a professional organizer, here’s a case study to help answer your question. Now, I will say…I can rattle off countless reasons why hiring someone like me is a huge benefit. For today, let’s just focus on this closet as an example in how we can save you time, money….AND SPACE!
We’ve been working for this family for one full year. Mom reached out first for help with unpacking back in March 2022. We slowly made our way from the kitchen to the kids’ bedrooms to the playroom to the garage and mudroom and so on. What I didn’t know in the process of us working together is that her interior designer had designed an Elfa closet for her primary bedroom. This is NOT a ding against the designer, don’t get me wrong…she did a great job with what she knew. But there’s something about the way an organizer sees space and function that can be totally different.
BEFORE
Our client let me know the closet would be installed on a specific date and asked if we could be there to help organize it. We organized it as best we could, but after a few months Mom contacted me again to share some pain points. I saw these potenially popping up later, but it’s always a good rule to let you live with the space BEFORE making costly edits.
A few of the pain points were that the hanging clothes were draping into the drawers beneath…
Each time she opened the top drawers, she had to push clothing out of the way. Not only was this annoying, but it was causing some of her clothing to wrinkle.
Another pain point were these two small drawers on the far right…
If you look closely, the closet door swings in. Therefore, to open these drawers she had to step into the closet fully, close the door and then open the drawers.
She has a fair amount of jewelry that she loves to wear. Those small drawers contain her collections. I suggested we move those to the left wall and add a few more to give her a dedicated jewelry section. You can see these shelves were not being utilized very well so it made sense to space plan this way. She also had additional jewelry boxes you see on the shelves that had nowhere to go…
When consulting with her on these pain points, I also figured out she wasn’t planning to use the floor space under the drawers. I thought we could easily lower the system on the wall to loosen up the clothing and make some other edits, as mentioned above. BUT big issue…the hanging standards were five inches too short! In order for me to proceed with lowering the drawers, we’d have to update the standards to the full wall length.
In these images and the below video you can see what I’m talking about. This is when we were there to empty and update the closet…everything out and system down to update the standards…
In specific spaces where there’s the potential to later edit an Elfa system, I always ensure the standards run the entire wall length. This allows us to manipulate easily. Those five inches of length provide us with OVERALL FEET of available space.
AFTER
Took a little time and effort, but it was worth the update. Take a look now!
There’s much more air around the clothing and they no longer drape into the drawers. I also popped in a shelf where the drawers used to be on the right to make good use of that open space. The jewelry section came together beautifully…
I added a few jewelry organizing inserts to contain her tiny earrings. Those aren’t pictured here but you can see them in the below video.
Now she has seven full drawers for her daily pieces and heirloom items from her mom and family.
I also updated the sweater boxes to fit the shelf footprint much better…
Huge improvements made in this closet by simply adding five inches of length to the system!
Here’s a video that includes the closet before, during our edit and the final after…Enjoy this one!
The Elfa system is a great investment because it can grow / change with you…and edits like this can easily be made as opposed to a custom closet.
Happy to answer your Elfa questions so let me know if you have any!
Back soon with another post – hope you had a wonderful weekend…
xo,
Sam
Hi Sam!
We always find the Elfa standards to be too short. So far (in two homes) we’ve lived with that. So how do you get “full length” standards? Are they custom made? Or do you use two, one above, one below the other? We’ve been told they only come in one length. We’ve just Elfa’ed my office closet and are ready to tackle the pantry. Hope all is well with you. They need you here in the Philly area!
Armené
Hi!
As far as I know, the hanging standards comes in 2 lengths. All you need to do is purchase the longer standard and cut it to the length you need, if that’s the situation you have going on right now. Sounds like it is. The store can cut them for you as well and it’s complimentary.
I saw an email from you as well…will respond to that too!
xo,
Sam