before and after: closet case

My condo was built in the late 60s and has an incredible amount of closet space for 1100 square foot. (Once you're in the market for a new place to live do you realize that not all spaces are created equal - I will miss these closets) I have remodeled the kitchen, both bathrooms, finished the bedrooms with crown moulding and fresh paint (a few times), screened in the patio, re-piped, put in new air conditioning and water heater... but, never touched the closets. Both bedroom closets are identical with a row of eight-foot tall louvered doors (the space has nine-foot ceilings). The space inside the closet is incredible, but since we use our second bedroom as an office, the space was never used efficiently. Both closets have identical interiors that consist of two built in shelves that run the length of the closet, below that is a garment bar that runs the length of the closet, and a built in shoe rack on the floor. In our bedroom this setup is fine because it's filled with clothes, but the office was a nightmare because we had two shelves up top to store things on, but the shoe rack sits on a decline, which made it difficult to stack boxes in the large space below.

BEFORE: Sorry for the poor picture quality - taken from my phone.

Finally, I'd had enough and went searching for options. Closet companies were too expensive, so I found some shelves at Lowe's and designed the space myself for what I thought would be most efficient. We decided to do the work ourselves, so I got busy ripping out the shelves, garment bar, and shoe rack. Here it is post-destruction:

What we needed most were shelves. I thought a little garment bar space would be appropriate when we had guests (or for any clothing overflow), and I wanted an area to store tall things like wrapping paper or my camera tripod. Here's how it turned out:

AFTER: I used a real camera this time.

Finally, a real space that suits our needs efficiently. I think it looks good too...like, I'm OK if the doors are open. If I had chosen the white plastic-coated shelving or something more utilitarian, I could have saved more money - but we still saved tons compared to having a professional closet company do it for us. Here is a pic once I started putting things back inside...night and day from the original space.

I used Valspar Paint+Primer in Bistro White to paint the interior of the closet.

via my perfect color