Ancient Greece

Chilon of Sparta was a poet and philosopher in the sixth century BC and is considered one of the seven sages of Greece. Many scholars believe that he coined the phrase “less is more” to represent the Spartan attitude toward life. Chilon’s view was that by saying less, a person gave more weight or emphasis to the few words spoken.

20th Century

Along with Frank Lloyd Wright and several others, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (commonly known as Mies) was one of the founders of modernist architecture. He was well known for repeating the expression “less is more,” and his application of the principle is obvious in the clarity and simplicity of his minimalist style. He loved free-flowing, multifunctional spaces that took advantage of their outdoor surroundings.

Modern Day

While Marie Kondo introduced a new generation to minimalism several years ago, the current stars of the movement are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. Their 2021 documentary “The Minimalists: Less Is Now” was nominated for a Daytime Emmy and has been viewed by millions. In it, the two friends explore why people hold on to junk, explain how intentional living can transform lives, and suggest a 30-day declutter routine.

Creating a Less-Is-More Home

To create a minimalist home, you must be like Chilon and focus on the things that are important. For instance, if you’ve spent tons of time and money building your wardrobe, you don’t want to shove your favorite pieces into a closet crammed with items you never wear. After getting rid of the clothes and shoes you no longer want, you must decide how to arrange what’s left in a simple and efficient way. This is the perfect time to contact the organization experts at Closets by Design. Whether you have a walk-in or reach-in closet, our designers can make the most of your space by combining adjustable shelving, hanging bars, shoe racks, jewelry drawers, and more. Everything in your wardrobe will have a place, so you can easily locate and put away each item.

You might also choose to be like Mies and focus on creating a free-flowing multifunctional space by putting a wall bed in your guest room or home office. Closets by Design has a variety of wall beds in single, double, and queen sizes that can be paired with shelves, desks, cabinets, and more. Because the beds fold up into the wall when not in use, you can transform any room into a multipurpose space. Best of all, our products are fresh and modern with sleek lines and beautiful, functional design features.

Perhaps you’d prefer to emulate the Minimalists and begin living more intentionally by decluttering your kitchen and getting rid of all the junk and unused appliances that are taking up space. Again, Closets by Design can help you create a more pleasant kitchen environment with a custom pantry. With the right combination of drawers, shelving, cubbies, and other design elements, your pantry will provide easy access to the food and equipment you need to make preparing meals less stressful. Having an organized pantry also saves you time and money since you can quickly see which items you need. That way, you don’t run out of your favorite foods or buy duplicates.

Schedule Your Free In-Home Consultation

If you’re ready to simplify your life, Closets by Design offers stylish organization systems that enable you to maximize your home storage without detracting from the beauty of your interior. Contact us today to set up your free consultation and let us help you discover why less is more.

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Welcome Fresh Energy into Your Home

The underlying belief in Feng Shui is that chi, or energy, makes up and moves through everything. When energy gets blocked, it becomes stagnant and creates disharmony in the surrounding area. The front door is considered to be the entryway of chi or the place where energy enters your home. Naturally, you want energy to flow in effortlessly, so it’s important to keep the vicinity clean and clutter-free. Unfortunately, the area around the front door is often a dumping ground for shoes, umbrellas, coats, etc. To contain the clutter and create a tidier space, consider adding a coat closet to your front hall or foyer. All you need is a blank wall, a little bit of room, and help from the professionals at Closets by Design. They can design a coat storage space with hanging bars, shoe racks, and adjustable shelves . You can even incorporate cubbies or baskets for each family member’s belongings, so everyone can contribute to keeping your entryway tidy and the energy flowing.

Create Space

In Feng Shui, the reason for getting rid of clutter is to open up space for new things to come into your life. Every time you get rid of stuff you no longer use or need, you make room for something fresh to enter. Clutter also traps energy and causes it to become stagnant, so a bookcase stuffed with books and magazines you may never look at again is not only an eyesore, it can make the entire room feel messy and disorganized. If you need to rein in an overflowing media collection (whether it consists of books, vinyl, or those CDs you can’t bear to part with), start by editing out the items you don’t want. Then find an efficient and neat way to store what remains. Closets by Design’s custom media centers offer a great solution. With a combination of shelves, drawers, and cubbies, you can organize all your media and electronics while hiding unsightly cables and streaming boxes. Best of all, we offer a variety of styles so your new piece will complement your existing furniture.

Remove Obstacles in Your Path

Any physical thing that impedes your progress is an obstacle, and if it interrupts your progress, it’s also disrupting the flow of energy through your home. Take a good look around your house. Where do you consistently run into obstacles? Is it the bar stool that juts out a little too far? Think about replacing it with one that’s a better fit. Has the plant in the corner of your dining room started taking over the space? Don’t be afraid to give it a good pruning. Do you trip over shoes and piles of clothes every time you walk through your bedroom? It’s definitely time for a custom closet. No matter what size your closet is, the experts from Closets by Design will work with you to make the most of all the space you have. If your closet is small, we’ll maximize every inch by incorporating the design features that suit your particular needs. And if you have a walk-in, we can include drawers, a tilt-out hamper, a jewelry drawer, and more to keep your clothing and accessories organized and within easy reach. When you have a designated place for everything, you can quickly put away any clothing or shoes that might otherwise become obstacles on your path.

Learn More about How Closets by Design Can Help

At Closets by Design, we’re passionate about assisting our customers as they organize their homes. Since 1982, we’ve been an industry leader due to our winning combination of high-quality products, great value, and outstanding customer service. Contact us to schedule a free in-home consultation and learn how our organization solutions can help you create more balance in your home.

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Take Inventory

Whether you have a closet in your home built specifically for holding linens or whether you’ve designated an area of your bathroom, mudroom, or laundry room for the storage of sheets and towels, more than likely, you’re hanging on to items you no longer use or need. Take everything out of your linen closet and decide which things you should keep. If you’re still hanging on to the Thomas the Tank Engine sheets that your 17-year-old used as a kid, now is a great time to donate them to your favorite charity, along with any towels, table linens, etc. that you haven’t touched in ages. Throw out the threadbare towels and sheets with holes, or cut them up and use them as cleaning rags. Keep only the linens you use. Organization experts recommend keeping three sets of sheets and towels for each regularly occupied bedroom, two sets of sheets and towels per guest room, plus extra pillows and a blanket for every room.

Make a Plan

Often, linen closets are small and contain only a few shelves. If you simply cram sheets and towels onto the shelves, eventually, things become a jumbled mess; therefore, decide how you want to organize your linens before you begin putting them back in the closet. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Add adjustable shelves. If you don’t already have them, adjustable shelving makes closet organization much easier. You can leave more room for bulky items, like quilts and pillows, and create smaller areas for table linens or washcloths.
• Try shelf dividers. They come in especially handy when your linen closet is multi-purpose. For instance, you can partition an area for laundry supplies, another for your iron, and others for your sheets and towels.
• Use baskets, bins, or cubbies. With the right collection of containers, you can organize your linens in numerous ways. Perhaps you’d like to separate your sheets by size so all the twin sheets go in one bin, all the queen sheets go in another, and so on. Or maybe you’d prefer to designate a basket for each room in the house and put all the linens for the guest room in one bin, the kitchen linens in another, etc. Whatever arrangement you choose, containers will help you use your space more efficiently.
• Put bulky items on the bottom. If you have extra quilts, blankets, or seasonal items, store those in the bottom of the closet. It’s best to have sheets, pillowcases, and towels on the middle shelves, so you can reach them easily. You can save the top shelves for smaller items you use less often, such as holiday napkins or extra pillows.
• Use clear containers for non-linen items. When you have to store toiletries, tissue paper, or other items in your linen closet, consider using clear containers. That way, you don’t have to go through every basket or bin to find what you want.

Call Closets by Design

If you truly want to maximize the space in your linen closet, call the experts at Closets by Design. We can transform it into a masterpiece of organization. Whether your linen closet is large or small, we’ll measure it to the inch and prepare a custom design for you. You can choose from hundreds of features, such as adjustable shelves, shelf dividers, wire baskets, and drawers. And if you want a totally new linen closet, we can create one for you. All we need is a little space, such as an unused corner of your laundry room or a blank wall in your bathroom. Schedule your free in-home consultation today, and see why we’re an industry leader in total customer satisfaction.

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Start by Emptying Your Closet

That’s right, take out everything. In order to use all the clothes in your closet, you first have to see what’s in there. As you remove items, separate them into four piles — keep, mend, donate or consign, and toss. This is the perfect time to try on clothes you haven’t worn for a while. If something doesn’t fit or if you don’t like the way it looks on you, get rid of it.

Sort the Remaining Clothes

If you live in a climate that requires different attire for each season, start by separating your warm-weather clothes from the cold-weather ones. Then within each season, separate items into categories based on use, such as work, casual, dressy, and outdoor. At this stage, you can put away the clothes that are out of season. Whether you hang them in the back of your closet or store them in bins, the idea is to get them out of the way so you can focus on the clothes you’ll be wearing for the next few months.

Put Together Your Outfits

Now it’s time for some fun. See how many outfits you can create from what’s already in your wardrobe. An easy way to start is by laying out all your pants and skirts. Then take each top and see how many bottoms it pairs well with. Hopefully, each top will work with multiple bottoms. Next, pull out your shoes, belts, and other accessories to finish the outfit. Be creative and experiment with mixing textures and colors. Make sure to look at your dresses, sweaters, jackets, and suits as well to see how they work with the rest of your wardrobe.

Record Your Combinations

You don’t want to forget any of the fabulous new combinations you’ve discovered, so be sure to document them. Some people like to keep a wardrobe diary where they write down the various ways they can use each piece. Another option is to create a fashion album in your phone by taking pictures of the outfits as you put them together. You can even tap into your inner model and photograph yourself wearing each one.

Organize Your Closet

Once you know how all your pieces work together, you need to store them in a way that makes them easy to access. When you organize by outfit, you can set up zones for work clothes, casual wear, etc. This is where closet dividers come in handy. Even if you have a small closet, you can create zones to organize your clothes and accessories. Of course, when you have a walk-in closet, you have more room for additional categories. If, for instance, you like planning what you’re going to wear ahead of time, designate a section specifically for your weekly wardrobe. Over the weekend you can pick out the clothes you want to wear each day of the coming week. Then you can wake up and grab an outfit without having to think about it.

Let Closets by Design Help

No one knows how to organize a closet better than the professionals at Closets by Design. Whether your closet is tiny or huge, they can customize it with adjustable shelving, hanging bars, shoe racks, and more to create a space where your clothing and accessories are always in their place. Best of all, you can schedule a free in-home design consultation with one of our experts. Contact us today to learn more.

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Choose a Room to Transform

Have you realized that you never use that home workout room? Or maybe your youngest child has left the house. Whatever the reason, if you have an extra room, you can repurpose it as a walk-in closet. Ideally, the room you choose should be close to your bedroom, so you have easy access to your wardrobe. But if that won’t work in your home, you can put your closet anywhere you like, as long as you don’t mind a little walk to get there.

If you’re thinking about converting your current guest room but are worried about getting rid of the bed, don’t be. Closets by Design offers an array of wall beds  in single, double, and queen sizes. When not in use, these beds fold up into the wall, so they’re out of the way for your day-to-day routine. However, if you have company in town — voila, instant bed. Best of all, a wall bed can be integrated seamlessly into the design for your new closet, creating an elegant multi-functional space.

Decide Which Features You Want

When you work with the experts from Closets by Design, we’ll measure your room and itemize the contents of your wardrobe. Then we’ll sit down with you to create a custom design that’s perfect for your space. With dozens of material options and hundreds of features to choose from, our closet systems can be configured in a nearly infinite number of ways. Would you like an entire wall of adjustable shelves for your shoes and purses? Do you want a valet rod for putting together your outfit for the next day’s activities? Maybe you need a velvet-lined jewelry drawer for your sunglasses and earrings or a security drawer for your truly precious treasures. How about a tilt-out hamper for your dirty clothes or an island with drawers where you can fold clean laundry and stash sweaters or jeans? Those are only a few of the many options you can incorporate into your customized closet.

Express Your Inner Diva

Just as your wardrobe represents your unique style, so can your closet. Once your designs are exactly as you want them, you can choose from a variety of colors and even textures for your project.  Our offerings will match any taste and any décor.  And after you finalize your order, Closets by Design will build your units from the finest materials and professionally install them. Then it’s up to you to add the personalized touches that will take your closet to the next level of awesomeness.

Schedule Your Free In-Home Consultation

At Closets by Design, we understand that a closet is more than a storage unit for your wardrobe, so we’ll help you create a soothing space where you can prepare for the upcoming day and unwind after it. Since 1982, we’ve built a reputation as an innovator in our industry. Our quality products and excellent customer service have caused even the most hard-to-please divas to sing our praises. Contact us today to schedule your no-obligation in-home consultation.

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While some people claim that doing laundry is akin to meditating, others prefer to spend as little time as possible on the task. Whichever camp you belong to, one thing is certain: having an organized laundry room can make your clothes-washing routine much easier. Here are some suggestions for creating a laundry room that’s clean and efficient.

Declutter Routinely

Do you love the feel and smell of warm clothes fresh from the dryer but hate the sight of your disorganized laundry room? That’s understandable. Most laundry rooms tend to become dumping grounds for all sorts of things — dirty and clean laundry, clothes that need to be mended, old cleaning supplies, etc. To keep the mess from piling up, take 15 to 20 minutes every couple of weeks to clear out anything that’s taking up unnecessary space. You may also want to add tilt-out hampers, like the ones offered by Closets by Design. When you add multiple hampers, you can designate one for colors and another for whites, or one for dirty clothes and one for clean clothes that need to be folded. It’s much easier to get your laundry done when you don’t have to step around mounds of clothes.

Use All the Space

If you don’t already have cabinets in your laundry room, think about installing them to make full use of the vertical space that’s available. A combination of cabinets, drawers and pull-out shelves allows you to store cleaning products behind doors and keep frequently used items within easy reach. With Closets by Design custom cabinets, you can incorporate an ironing board drawer or a wall-mounted board to keep that ugly but essential tool out of sight. Both options save space while still making it simple to access your ironing board.

Even if your room is small, you probably have storage space that you aren’t utilizing. At a minimum, you may be able to install a countertop over your washer and dryer (so you have a place to sort and fold clothes) or a pull-down hanging rod for drying delicate items.

Make the Laundry Room Multi-Purpose

Laundry rooms are often located near a secondary entrance, like a garage or side door. As family members come inside, they frequently leave rain boots, jackets, umbrellas, sports gear, and other items piled in the laundry room. Why not go with the flow and create a multi-purpose mudroom? Group your machines, ironing board, and other laundry essentials on one side of the room and add cabinets, shelving, and hooks to the other side. You can even assign cubbies to each family member, so they have a dedicated place for their stuff. There are so many storage options available that are both functional and stylish. In addition to their wide array of cabinet styles, Closets by Design offers wall storage systems that will help you turn your messy space into a well-organized, multi-functional room. To see some of our fantastic designs in action, check out Closets by Design on Facebook or Instagram.

Let an Expert Help

If you’re spending the equivalent of an eight-hour workday in your laundry room every month, shouldn’t that space be working for you? The professionals at Closets by Design can create a custom design plan that will make your laundry room beautiful and efficient. As industry leaders for forty years, we offer the highest quality product construction and the best value in the business. Contact us today to schedule your free in-home consultation.

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Adding extra closet space to your home doesn’t have to involve framing out walls and putting up drywall. Closets by Design can help you create a closet without all the fuss and even make it seem like the storage unit was part of the existing space from the start.

Determine Your Closet Space Needs

What do you need to store? Sometimes it’s best to collect all the items you need to store ‘somewhere’ and then design a space around that. Do you need more hanging room for clothing, shelves for extra linens and towels, or drawers and baskets for keepsakes? This is when bringing in a professional may help you come up with the right plan for organizing your stuff.  Closets by Design will send a design specialist to your home for a free consultation. Based on your exact storage needs, we’ll create a perfect closet space specifically for you.  You can also gain additional storage ideas by exploring this website. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, where we often post photos of our customers’ projects.

Find a Space

All you need is a blank wall or empty space to get started. Is there an empty corner in your laundry room, an odd nook somewhere, or a place under your staircase? All are great possibilities to create additional storage. If you’re still piling multiple jackets, scarves, and gloves on an old hat rack, look around your foyer– if there’s a blank space on a wall, that could be the new closet space. For a larger closet, consider converting a spare room in your home (an unused office or playroom, for instance) into a grand walk-in closet.

Choose Your Closet Space Style

Once you’ve decided where you want a closet and what functional elements that closet will have, it’s time to decide what style you want. Do you like a design that’s modern and bold with sleek corners and clean edges, or do you prefer a more sophisticated look with darker wood and glass doors? Maybe you want a closet space that’s primarily functional but with a stylish twist. There are so many options to choose from. When you work with a Closets by Design consultant, you can pick the features that will suit your needs and your sense of style all while complimenting your storage design.

Let Closets by Design Make Your Dream a Reality

Closets by Design has been an industry leader since 1982. Our professionally trained designers will help you create a closet space that’s perfect for you, no matter what size.  Contact us today to schedule your free in-home consultation, and we’ll help you turn your dream into a reality.

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Earth Tones and House Plants

One home design trend is all about nature. Earth tones like greens, blues, and browns are now more popular as people move away from stark white and gray, in favor of surrounding themselves with warm tones. The term “biophilia” is also trending. Biophilia is defined as a human tendency to be close to or commune with nature. Designers believe 2022 will see a lot of people using house plants as décor to bring a bit of the outside into their homes.

Mudrooms

While people may invite nature into their homes, they still want to keep the dirt out. Mudrooms remain a popular home design trend option, but they have become less of a room, and more of a drop zone, maybe in a corner of the laundry room or the garage. These areas have plenty of storage for shoes, coats, and backpacks in the form of hooks, bins, and cubbies.

Home Offices

During the quarantine period at the start of the pandemic, people were forced to work from home. Some of those people never went back to the office. According to a Gallup poll taken in the fall of 2021, 45 percent of full-time United States employees worked from home at least part of the time in September. Where home offices used to be a luxury, they are now a necessity and a top home design trend. People need a dedicated space so they can keep their work life and their home life separate, a place where they can work and not be disturbed.

Multi-Purpose Rooms

For those who don’t have a room to dedicate to an office, the multi-purpose room has become popular. People have become creative with how they use their space. You may have an office in a corner of your living room. Maybe a spare bedroom doubles as a home gym or a hobby room.

Wall Beds

Another home design trend design that has seen an explosion in popularity is the Wall Bed. The home improvement website Houzz reported that searches for wall beds were up more than 2,000 percent from 2020 to 2021. Being able to fold away the bed during the day so the room can be used for something else goes hand-in-hand with the trend of multi-purpose rooms.

Storage Trends

Organization is a huge home design trend. People are moving away from utilitarian plastic bins and toward baskets made from natural materials as a way to store their things without taking away from their décor. And there is a big demand for hidden storage, including built-in storage units with drawers and cabinets, to keep spaces clutter-free and more relaxing.

Home Design Trends and Closets by Design

Whether you are looking for a home office, a hobby room, a mudroom, or something completely different, our designers will work with you to transform your space while staying within your budget. There are a wide variety of style options to fit your aesthetic. Each Closets by Design location has an on-site manufacturing facility where your project is custom built to order.

If you like to see what Closets by Design can do for your home, contact us today for your free design consultation.

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Even people with adequate physical storage space — including closets, pantries, and garages — may find that these spaces themselves can become the source of chaos. This is especially true if they are ill-designed. Are your closets stuffed to the max? Can’t find anything in your packed pantry? Then you might need a little professional help!

Closets by Design provides custom solutions for organization — including reach-in and walk-in closets, pantries, laundry spaces, home offices, and garage storage. We also provide all the accessories necessary to furnish a functional space — including cabinetry, shelving, cubbies, drawers, racks, jewelry trays, tilt-out hampers, and wall organizers. If you can imagine what your perfect space would be, we can build it. And if you cannot imagine what it needs to be? That is why we have professionals who can help you personally evaluate your comprehensive needs and what designs will best serve you.

If you are truly stuck, you might even want to make a call to us your first step in canceling the clutter in your home. Meanwhile, here are some tips to get you started.

Closets

If you have not done a thorough purge of your bedroom closet lately, it will make your decluttering project a little longer but more productive in the end. You will be able to really assess your space and what it lacks.

• Get rid of whatever you do not wear. To help you truly determine what you do not wear, try this trick. Face hangers in one direction and turn them around when you wear what is on them. After six months, clothes on hangers facing the original direction can be put in the donation pile.
• Hang tops and skirts over built-in shelves or drawers and hang long dresses and pants on higher rods where there is nothing underneath.
• Consider installing a system with slanted shoe shelves. A hanging shoe storage system is a temporary option, but shelves will help shoes last longer and keep them out of the way (yet on display).
• It is easy to make a mess if you do not have designated spots for smaller items, like ties, belts, and jewelry. Pros can install a tie drawer, jewelry drawer, and a sliding belt rack to help keep such items organized.
• Look for unnecessary items that may have intruded on the space, like unused sporting gear or electronics. Move these to garage or living room storage areas.

Pantry

You may turn your pantry inventory over quickly, but most of us have those jars and cans that seem to remain untouched.

• Remove everything from the pantry and purge! Check the expiration dates and toss everything that is past its prime. If you have food items that are still good, but you know you will never use them — consider donating to a local food pantry.
• After a quick wipe down, begin to put things back in an organized way. Clear containers and bins are helpful for corralling things by type, such as a bin for snack bars, one for chips, etcetera.
• Consider decanting pasta, rice, and cereal and baking items like flour and sugar for a more streamlined look.
• One of the benefits of having a custom pantry installed from Closets by Design is NOT dealing with wire shelving. It is so much easier to organize items on flat shelving.
• Some of the trends we are installing in home pantries include drawers with acrylic fronts so you can easily see what’s inside and wire baskets that pull out. These are great for storing vegetables.

Garage

If your car is in the driveway all the time because it will not fit in the garage, you are going to need a lot more than a broom and dustpan. Make a plan and pace yourself!

• Dedicate a full day or weekend to decluttering and organizing the garage. You can even make it a family project.
• Sort items into piles — Keep, Donate, Sell or Toss — with those “toss” items, be sure to identify the items that can be recycled.
• Keep items that you use frequently, such as pet leashes, within easy reach — perhaps on hooks by the door.
• Create zones for groups of things such as auto care, gardening, and sports equipment, so that like items are stored together.
• Place rarely used items, such as holiday decorations, on shelves or in cabinets. We install a line of extremely study cabinetry and shelving units specifically designed for garages.
• Tools like shovels and rakes as well as bicycles are best stored by hanging on the wall. Our slatwall system is perfect for these items. You can move the hooks around and even pop on baskets and bins to hold smaller items.

Imagine having a garage where there is also room for your car. Closets by Design can not only provide garage organizational solutions but also help you outfit custom work areas for carpentry or other hobbies.

Let Us Help!

Decluttering would be less of a chore for many people if they did not feel like they were just moving “stuff” from one place to another. Having a custom home organization system might seem like too much of a luxury, but quality, affordable options are available to you. Contact our professionals today for a free consultation.

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