Croix's Custom Closet
Well, it's official - our two year old is living a more luxurious life then us. His bathroom has heated floors, there is a slide to catapult him from his bed to the toilet and now....now he has a custom closet.
Meanwhile I have to stand on my tub to get a full glimpse of my whole outfit in the mirror. A site for sure, at my now 8 month pregnant state. OY! In all seriousness, we are well aware of the lavishness of a custom closet for a kid, a toddler kid at that, but this room needed the functionality to serve us and our kid(S) for the long haul. For anyone just tuning in we are turning our upstairs guest bedroom into Croix's Big Boy Room. In late summer we DIY'ed bunkbeds that take up a large chunk of the space. We are super happy with how those turned out but the scale of the built-ins really don't leave us with much wall space for furniture. Luckily, this big room also came with a big closet. But big is only helpful, if there is organization around it. And with two wire shelves and a window in the middle, we needed some help.
The company I work for - Bell Cabinetry & Design has a closet division called Inspired Closets Atlanta, so I knew just who to contact for my closet needs. Interior design is such an interesting business...there are so many sectors you can specialize in and closets is definitely one of them. Interestingly, I know very little about closet design so I was VERY grateful when designer Ashley Fricton agreed to help me navigate the best solutions for this space. I took some dimensions and sent them her way and in a flash I had the first round of designs in my inbox!
The Before:
We went through a few iterations where little things were tweaked, but the above designs were the final version that I signed off on. I knew early on we wanted to go with black for the material color. Not only is it a little different but I felt like it would be more forgiving as Croix + sibling use (and likely abuse) the space. We also made the decision to take the closet all the way to the ceiling. Because this is where most, if not all of the clothes storage will be we wanted to maximize every square inch.
We've had a lot of fun getting all of his clothes transferred upstairs and all organized. As you can see we still have so much space, but we love that we can use the tip top to store misc. items, toys and even clothes he outgrows but we want to save for siblings/cousins/friends.
Ashley was so helpful in giving advice about must-haves. I love how we have 3 levels of hanging + so many open shelves. Also, really love the drawers. The one thing I decided kind of last minute was to forgo the built-in hampers in favor of just purchasing something to fit into the space and I'm really glad that's the direction I went. I love the texture and interest these baskets bring to the space + these hampers can be moved down to the laundry room and back again when it's time to wash clothes.
Once all designs were approved the lead time was about 4-6 weeks. The whole process went so smoothly and I couldn't of asked for a better install experience.
At this point the only thing the space is lacking is a curtain, which my favorite curtain-making-machine has already said she would knock out for us; and maybe a rug and some baskets. All in all it was a great experience with an outcome that surprised my expectations. It's a shame really, because now I want to re-do every closet in my house. THANKS A LOT ASHLEY! :) Maybe one day but for now we are happy relishing in the fact that Croix is THIS close to move-in. In fact...it may actually happen this weekend. Stay tuned on that!
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