I know, that title. An organized closet *in* a wine cellar? Yes friends, it’s true. And this closet is not exactly related to wine…unless you count the awesome idea to re-purpose a few empty wine crates as storage solutions. Or that some decanting items are stored in here. Or that we were organizing amongst the most incredible wine collection. Or that you have to walk through this wine cellar to access the closet.

Just wait. It will all make sense.

And we loved every second of being bundled in warm down jackets to work in this tight, small, temp-controlled space.

First of all, this incredible woman, wife, mother and grandmother… she is absolutely the sweetest, funnest, most fit (she teaches Barre classes), loving, most generous of all time. Mean that! We never leave her house without a bottle of wine AND champagne. And we’ve done several projects in her home so you can imagine how my own wine closet currently looks.

Every day we work in -person with clients I pinch myself – how is it possible to have fallen into a niche with so many incredible, fun and wonderfully warm, lovely, fun families and women?

So grateful and so appreciative.

And I love them all right back!

You’ll see more of her projects soon as I work my way through all we’ve tackled in the last 18+ months. But I had to begin here. Because…hi…

The closet is located inside this wine cellar. Which is totally temperature-controlled, beautiful and soon will be organized with an app. Don’t worry, I’m on that one and will be there the day that happens!

She and her husband added a lower-floor to this already beautiful home. They love to entertain and host family and friends all year long. They love to go wine tasting and have a few favorite wineries they order from regularly. When they added on, they made space for a wine cellar. In addition to the cellar, there was space inside to add even more storage…but not for wine…

I mentioned she loves her friends and family. And loves to entertain. This is where some of her entertaining items, greeting cards and gifts she collects are tucked away. Gifts for people she loves. And she loves many. She recently went on a dream trip to Africa and returned with gifts she can give all year long…

As you know, I have become known as the organizer you throw those challenging, tight, small, odd-angled spaces to…not sure much tops this situation. The wall / space you see above is one area…but if you turn directly to the right, you see this…

Yes. That is a life-size Santa.

Space was being wasted, but only because there was the challenge of how to make it work with the odd angles / tight space. For all the things she loves. Our dream was making it totally functional – need a card or a gift? Find it here. Need a wine decanter for a gathering? It’s here.

We started by emptying the space and sorting the contents.

Cleaned it top to bottom…Then I added Elfa shelving to give her all the storage she needed…

Hopefully you can visualize just how tight this area is, but wow – what an impact the shelving made!…

The shelving alone ensured everything would be up off the floor.

In this odd-shaped cut out, I added decanters, small entertaining items and her collection of gift bags and greeting cards…

One of their favorite wineries is Jarvis and the crates were stacked 6-7 high in the cellar. But I noticed she had a few empty crates. We re-purposed those to organize her card collection…

And her pretty collection of gift bags and tissue paper…

The crates have built-in dividers which worked in our favor – so cool!…

And I love that this space is inside the wine cellar – makes total sense to re-purpose the crates for storage.

To the right, we organized her gifts by category…

Candles, items from Africa, holidays, wine-related gifts and more…all organized by shelf. I went with 20″ depth shelving in this little alcove to give her tons of room. Worked out beautifully!

She can see and find it all when she’s looking for a card or gift.

Wondering what happened to Santa? When we organized this space it was leading into December so we moved him upstairs and left a ton of wide open floor space for her to tuck him away when the season ends!

Hope you enjoyed this little peek into her tiny wine closet. Had the very best time designing, decluttering and organizing this space…for this incredible sweetheart!

If you are interested in the shelving used in this space, it’s Elfa from The Container Store and it’s on sale through February 26. Don’t miss out!

Back soon with more you guys! We spent today installing and organizing 2 elfa closets for 2 of the sweetest little girls – will share those soon. Hope you had a great Tuesday, that felt like a Monday. These holidays totally throw me!

xo,

Sam