For those that have a small space, a little can feel like a
lot if it’s disorganized.
I’ve worked on 2 projects with my minimalist client. The first was her garage; the second was her
sewing closet. Sewing is something that
she loves doing and is really good at – anything from pattern making to tackling
formal gowns; I’ve even seen her handy work on underwire bras which I find
totally amazing – but her sewing closet was frustrating and she would get disappointed
when she had to dig for things when she started a new piece.
My client lives in a 2 bedroom craftsman house and keeps her
belongings modest and prefers a simple space.
Her sewing closet was the only corner she could not keep orderly so our
goal was to find a system where she can see and have access to all of her
supplies while not overwhelming the allotted square footage.
As the house is about a hundred years old, we decided on a
free standing unit that would allow for future flexibility if she ever chose to
expand the footprint and as the closet has unforgiving measurements, we chose
to custom build our own shelves with cinder-blocks and pine. We would then choose clear bins - love
me some Sterilite – because you want to know what have without having to
open the bin every time.
The cinder-block sizes were chosen carefully as we needed
opening wide enough to handle 2 bins, tall
enough to clear the lids, and deep enough that the bins did not overhang (one
of my pet peeves). Then they were sanded, sealed, and painted - I
got my tips from a local – and furniture pads were applied. The pine was cut
to size and wrapped in adhesive shelf paper of her choice – I love
that there are so many kinds – and I’ll note here that we used 2 lengths
of 1x8 for each shelf which allows for redesign if desired, kept costs down,
and was easier to wrap. All of the work was prepped and ready to go
before our session day – New Year’s Eve morning – 8am.
In just
under 3 hours we removed the ‘space gobbling’ wire shelf she was using and
re-purposed to the garage, trimmed the baseboard to fit, removed the extra
non-matching hooks, installed the custom measured, cut, sealed, painted, and
wrapped new shelves, installed 2
under shelf hook racks for pattern
hanging, binned her fabrics, and reinstalled supplies and inventory.
*Let me
clarify that I love the wire shelf system that she had in the closet; it just
did not fit properly. In fact we put 2
in her garage during the last project but when there is a shelf with one set of
measurements put inside a closet with a different set of measurements, there is
often a lot of unusable space left over – and THAT is what makes me disparage this
particular shelf unit.
Before the
organizational session: the shelf sat in the middle of the closet, her patterns
hung on 2 walls (or wherever she could find room), and she regularly had to dig
into multiple piles of fabric to find what she was looking for.
After: she
has a specific space for her hanging patterns, bins for her fabric inventory,
and now she can step into the closet to find anything that she might need
without having to move something out of her way.
At the end of the session she stood in her closet for the first time.
I think she was smiling bigger than I was.
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