Rubbermaid Closets
It’s unreal to be able to literally stand inside our house and get a sense of what it feels like. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying the building process. I never had the dream of building our own house; it just kind of worked out that way because of the particular neighborhood we wanted to live in (both in terms of affordability, diversity, and proximity to the school I’m trying to start) and our aesthetic preferences (we didn’t want to renovate a ranch house, which is what the rest of the neighborhood is comprised of).
But now that we’re building it, I’m thoroughly enjoying the process. We visit it at least 1-2 times a week, and it’s amazing to watch the progress and imagine our future life there.
Try as I might, there’s actually not that much that I can plan right now.
The one thing I can start planning, however, is the closets. The master closet is 13′ long, the baby’s closet is 9′ long, and Henry’s closet is 11′ long. I considered different options in this post (and ultimately decided to go with IKEA), but now I’m leaning more toward the Rubbermaid closet system. I like the customability that will allow us to design a closet to our exact specifications for an affordable price.
I started by brainstorming everything I want to keep on my side of the closet (Matt is going to design his own side of the closet):
- Hanging shirts
- Hanging skirts
- Hanging pans
- Hanging dresses
- A shoe rack
- Cubbies for sweaters
- A place for belts/scarves
- Drawers for socks, underwear, bras, workout shorts/shirts/pants, and sundry items
- Tabletop for jewelry (nice to have but not need to have)
- Computer printer
Then I sketched out my ideal arrangement (I tried to use their online design tool, but I could never get it to work properly). I have no idea if this configuration will actually work, but I’ll try to go to Lowe’s and see what they have to say. I’ll also plan to watch for sales or request a 10% off coupon directly from Lowe’s.
4 Comments
Annalisa
I hate the rubbermaid system for a few reasons. First, my clothes don't slide along. There's a stopping point every few inches so groups of my clothes get stuck together — sort of like shopping on a stuffed clothes rack with plenty of room on the next section. It's annoying. Also, those bins for storage are static — one bin might overflow while the other is scarce. I've found a traditional closet (we put in 2 poles for clothes – one on top and one on the bottom )with $45 target cubbies and cloth bins) underneath to be great. I also use hanging shoe racks for belts/ties/etc. I put one in my girls' closet to hold things like sleep sacks, summer/winter clothes/toys. I also like clear rubber maid bins for organizing – I put masking tape with a written label on a few sides and on top for easy viewing. I think these fancy closets seem so practical but really, they are overpriced and not as helpful as you might think.
Gabriela
I also never thought about building my own house, ever, but I have to say, the process looks pretty amazing. I wish you the best with your new house and congratulations! Your organizational skills, hard work, determination and dedication to your family and education are inspiring.
Hannah
Thats so incredible that you can actually stand in the rooms already and visualize it as your home!
E.
We have Elfa shelving that I've had since college (it seemed so insanely expensive at the time, but has proved to be such a good investment – I love how easy it is to reconfigure and redesign) and we recently reconfigured ours to contain all of our outdoor gear, so I'm hoping when we have a basement or closet specifically for camping and diving gear, we can install the Elfa and have a nicely organized space. I would say that the closet systems actually can work pretty well outside the closets – in one of our apartments, we had a hanging wall of Elfa with a desktop-wide piece at the bottom that I used as a craft surface, and I stored all of my craft supplies in bins above the surface. It worked really nicely and might make up for your desire for an art supply closet and give you additional storage space (I just re-read your original closet post as well). I would highly recommend getting a closet system that has a hanging bar that you can adjust the shelf heights easily. (I think the Rubbermaid system does this, but play with it in the store to make sure).