Horizontal Closet Organizer

What is worse than piles of dirty laundry?

I'd have to say piles of clean laundry with no closet to put it all away.  Then it gets mixed up with the dirty laundry, and you end up with twice as big piles of laundry that you have to treat as dirty laundry.  You know what I'm talking about here.

We've recently moved into the new house, and first up, I insisted that we have one working closet in the house.  

We've done lots of closets in the past, but this time, I got a little crazy and ditched the vertical organizer.

Yep, we went all horizontal on this closet. 

And this is why -

No more bending down low to reach a bottom shelf.  Or reaching up high to hang clothes.  And it's easy to fold and put away jeans at the perfect height.

We did lose about 2-1/2 feet of closet rod storage, trading it for 8 feet of shelving space at an easy to reach height.  I think that is worth it.

I'm so glad we went with the horizontal closet.  We love how functional and easy to reach everything is, and love the extra shelving storage for folded clothes and baskets for socks and underwear.  

Why Build a Horizontal Closet?

• More shelving at an easy to reach height for folded items like pants, t-shirts, and baskets for smaller items
• A top shelf above the organizer for out of season items in a full length width, so fits many size totes, bins or baskets
• No bending over and reaching with the hangers at mid height
• Economical and easy to build
• Easy to customize to just about any width and height
• NO removing baseboard or trim

Why Can't You Buy Horizontal Closets?

The problem with horizontal closets is it really needs to be custom, since closets come in all different sizes and shapes - so it's hard to buy an off the shelf horizontal closet.

You have to build it custom!

Good news is in this plan I'll show you how.

Some Things to Consider Before Building Your Own Horizontal Closet

• Make the organizer a little smaller so you can move it through the closet opening and rotate it (or build it in pieces in place), or build two or more smaller pieces that can be hung side by side.
• If there is space on the sides of the closet once it is installed, you can use this space for hanging dresses or taller items
• Widths of bays can be up to 36" - longer widths may sag
• For extra long closets, you can add as many bays as you'd like, but consider when the organizer is super long it gets hard to maneuver and install - so it may be better to break up into multiple organizers that are easy to handle.
• Shelves can be any height, 10-12" is pretty standard
• Leave 3-1/2" under the bottom shelf for the closet rod
• About 40" under the organizer is needed for hanging space.