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Tuesday 29 March 2011

British Building Designers Hate Storage Part 1

Anybody know what this is?

That's my closet.
What's that you say? "Surely, Meg, you mean your hall closet!"
No.  I do not.  This is the one and only built-in closet in our flat.  Which was built in 2004.

I understand older homes in England not having built in closets, but even brand new construction does not include bedroom closets.  This baffles me.  So this closet serves a multitude of functions.  Badly.

When I moved in to the flat, there wasn't even a clothing rod in it.  There were 4 hooks on each side wall.  Seriously.  Eight hooks- and that's it.  I had Ross fit the bar so we could at least hang our coats.  Come on, Brits!  You live in a climate that requires coat-wearing and then don't provide storage for them.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  There's also an over the door hook thingie for additional coat/hat storage (Shockingly, Ross has more of all of these things than I do!); a plastic drawer unit that holds medications, some painting supplies, camera accoutrements, and various other items; an iron and ironing board; a mop; an airer; and a few other things.

I would love this space to be used better.  That's one benefit of the lack of storage.  It really makes you think about how best to use it.  We're working on it.  Little by little, we're purging excess stuff from the flat and I'm bringing order to it.  I've even introduced Ross to the concept of THROWING THINGS AWAY ;)  He's catching on... I think.

How do you bring order to small spaces?  What would you do if your home only had one closet?

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