your child's closet -- a question

[Babywhite]

We are in the process of building a new house. When I was growing up, we had very small closets. I have always dreamed of my kids having somewhat large ones. We are planning on building a house that is about 2000 sq ft, and every plan that we like doesn't have small walk-in closets for the kids -- which is what I really want. (And there is no way to modify the plan to add them.)

What kind of closet does your child have? Is it big enough? This will probably be "the house" for us, so there is no second chance.

TIA

R.W.

[KBecks]

I had a regular size closet with sliding doors growing up. I think it was plenty of space. Our current house has the same set-up and Alek has tons of room now.

If you have girls, perhaps slightly larger closets would be needed. Or, if you don't want any dressers in the bedrooms.

I think when closets get too large, then you just accumulate too much stuff and lots of it doesn't get worn/used.

You could use the closet for toy storage as well, I suppose.

[kboyle]

DS's closet is 10' wide, but the bi-fold doors are 8' so there is some space passed where the door is. It's very wide, but I would rather had a walk-in too. But like you, it wasn't workable into our addition. Oh well...

[lynettefrancois]

I think it depends if they have storage elsewhere. For example, is there any mudroom space with a place for backpacks/coats etc? I only had a small bedroom closet forever, even when I was a teenager, but I had the entire nook under the stairs for all my stuffed animals, games, etc. When I was a kid, my mom stored my toys in the family room. If you don't have anyplace planned to store games, soccer balls and uniforms etc, I would say figure out some way to get those small walk-ins! I despise bi-fold doors, even on a pantry. The space at the ends is just not usable. Even my daughter's current closet, which is standard size but has regular doors, is not great. You can store SO much more in a walk-in, even if it's not much bigger square-foot wise than a traditional closet. And now, kids have a lot more planned activities than when I was little. There's soccer practice and all those knee pads, cheerleading has pom poms, and everything seems to have stuff to go with it. I'm all for purging, but I still think school age kids have a lot more gear than we did as kids. Just try to figure out if there is anywhere else to put it! HTH some!

[elliput]

The house I grew up in had the standard double sliding door closets, but had built in storage drawers in the base. The drawers were about 10 inches deep, so a bit of height was lost from the rail to the floor, but I think it helped to keep things a bit more organized in our closets.

[aliceinwonderland]

No closet for the kid, and a hallway one for us (old house). Doing fine so far :)

[C99]

I have an older house (1904) and the only walk-in closet in the house is in my daughter's bedroom. Of course, her room is only something like 12x9, so I don't know that it makes much of a difference. It's convenient for me to get in/out of her closet and we keep her chest of drawers w/in the closet, but I'd get more use out of a walk-in closet than she does. The MB actually has the smallest closet in the house and we keep a lot of our clothing in my son's bedroom -- his room is only 7x9.

[mommabear]

We are going to build or buy soon. My main priority is storage. I keep telling myself that when we find the house I will not make it emotional but stick to my guns and make storage a priority. In other words if I like everything about the house but the storage is not enough we will keep looking. The reason I say this is because if it isn't my house will never be organized to my liking and I will end up not enjoying it.
Now I just have to keep telling myself that. :)

[newnana]

Our house now has very small closets in all the bedrooms. The one in DD's room is maybe 4 feet wide with sliding mirrored closet doors. I wouldn't have thought of the mirrors, but she loves them.

That being said, we need more closet space. So I'll tell you of 2 ideal situations, from the 2 houses we had when I was a kid.

The first house had a couple of options. In both my brothers' rooms there were 2 6'wide closets with bifold doors. Both did the same setup: one held clothes, one held toys. My room was a little different, there was one of those wide closets with the bifold doors and then another regular closet like a linen closet with a regular sized room door. My wide closet had clothes hanging up top and my kitchen set in the bottom (sink, fridge, oven). The linen type closet held all other toys/books. My mom is of the opinion that a kid's room should be their sanctuary and if we wanted alone time, our room would be the perfect place to not have sibling squabbles.

The second house we each had walk in closets. Each of them were big enough for toys on one side and clothes on the other or clothes up top, toys beneath for a fort type playroom when we wanted.

Good luck!

[newnana]

Our house now has very small closets in all the bedrooms. The one in DD's room is maybe 4 feet wide with sliding mirrored closet doors. I wouldn't have thought of the mirrors, but she loves them.

That being said, we need more closet space. So I'll tell you of 2 ideal situations, from the 2 houses we had when I was a kid.

The first house had a couple of options. In both my brothers' rooms there were 2 6'wide closets with bifold doors. Both did the same setup: one held clothes, one held toys. My room was a little different, there was one of those wide closets with the bifold doors and then another regular closet like a linen closet with a regular sized room door. My wide closet had clothes hanging up top and my kitchen set in the bottom (sink, fridge, oven). The linen type closet held all other toys/books. My mom is of the opinion that a kid's room should be their sanctuary and if we wanted alone time, our room would be the perfect place to not have sibling squabbles.

The second house we each had walk in closets. Each of them were big enough for toys on one side and clothes on the other or clothes up top, toys beneath for a fort type playroom when we wanted.

Good luck!