Preferred size for a walk-in closet?

[h]

We're going to be putting a second story over our existing living, which will become our master bedroom. The new space will be a perfect rectangle,

23'x18'. This space is for the bedroom and closet. We're going to put in a walk-in closet, but are debating how big it needs to be. In our current bedroom we have a walk-in that's 8'x10', and it's much more space than we need. We keep suitcases and sports gear in there and it's nowhere near full.We are both VERY low-maintenance, and DH actually has more hanging clothing than I do.

I'm planning a closet with a center door, two hanging racks (one down each side), with some shelving above the racks and floor-to-ceiling shelves/storage on the far wall across from the door between the racks.

The architect is telling me that a walk-in "should" be "at least" 10'x12' or we "won't be able to sell the house". Since we plan to be carried out of here feet first, we couldn't care less about resale. Plus, I refuse to design new construction solely for "perceived" resale value when I plan to live here for at least 35 more years.

I don't care what the architect says, I neither want nor need a closet that big especially since we will still have the current master closet for storage when that room becomes the guest room, plus the tiny closets in the other two bedrooms (office and exercise room).

So...those of you with walk-in closets - how big are they and do you wish your closet was bigger or smaller?

[h]

[Art Todesco]

Just built a new house to my floorplan. There are only 2 bedrooms. The master has a 6 x 8 walk in with the door in the middle of the 8' side. We were going to have a 6' cloths rods on each of those walls, however, because of a duct chase we changed to having a 6' and an 8' on those 2 walls. The other bedroom has a

5 x 9 walk in with the door on the 5' wall to the left. The cloths rods go only down the 9' wall on the right side. Check out the floorplan at which is shown with a 2' x 2' grid overlayed. We are 2 60+ retired people. There is plenty of room for us, however, we do have lots of basement space.

[aemeijers]

Damn. Around here, 10x12 is considered a kid bedroom.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"h" wrote

Typical closet is about 28" deep. With a rack on each side that is 56" or about 5". You need at least the width of a door or 30" Lets round up to

3". That brings you to about 8". Depends on how much room you want in the aisle but 8" to 10" is not really huge.

[Steve]

h replied to their own post. I wonder if h plonked themselve.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, The bigger, the better. There is no such thing as preferred size. Ours is 24x16 and wife pushed me out of there. She needs more space now. Clothing, shoes, accessories such as purse, etc. Things are spilling out of the closet, LOL!

[JIMMIE]

What Ive noticed is that the only space that gets used is space up against the wall. Mine is 6x8 and seems to be a good size. I try to limit the closet to clothes only keep soft luggage in the closet. Other luggage is kept in a cabinet in the garage. Of course wife has about 2/3 of it.

Jimmie

[h]

That's my experience as well. Of course, I really only use the closet to hang things up and store out-of-season clothes in bags on shelves. Any extra space gets luggage and sports gear. I'm leaning towards staying with 8'x10' and telling the architect to just get over it.

[Pat]

I like a width of 7 feet. Allows clothes to be hung on each side with a 3 foot walkway. If I went wider I would jump to 12 feet with two aisles and hangers down the center as well. 14 foot would allow for two wide down the center. My current closet is 7X12. Plenty large in my single days. Starting to feel a little cramped with a woman using it too. I call them dressing rooms and include chairs, mirrors and built in cupboards. With everything in the closest the bedroom can be a modest size.

[dadiOH]

For what you want, it should be 6'-7' wide...24"-36" aisle plus 24" hanging space each side. Length up to you. Note that your shelving on the wall opposite entry won't be very useable because much it will be obscured behind the hanging racks.

When we built I included two closets (his & hers) like that...each is 6 1/2' wide x 8' long. The hanging space was partioned into thirds so that I could inlude multi-level hanging. One side has a small, built in armoire about

60" high in one of the thirds, shelves above; another of the thirds has a low set of drawers with hanging space for long items above. The top tier of all hanging spaces is at about 6' and above that there are shelves for little used items. The ceiling slopes crosswise and varies from 8' to 9 1/2'. The end opposite the entry has a full length mirror about 30" x 72". The floor within the hanging spaces is about 2" higher than the aisle floor; that's so dust and tracked in dirt will tend to stay in the aisle where it is easy to clean up.

Our closets hold a LOT of stuff and are easy and convenient to use.

[h]

LOL. As the female half of the couple who will be using the closet, I can tell you that DH has more clothes, is much more appearance-obsessed, and takes up a lot more space! I just want a rack on each side with shelves above and about 3' of floor-to-ceiling shelving on the far wall between the two racks. Sounds like my "too-small-closet" will work just fine.

Thanks for the comments!

[jamesgangnc]

You're not putting in a bathroom? Personally I'd take an end off your original retangle and divide it between a walk in closet and a bath. And I'd also plan a stackable washer/dryer hookup in the closet. The laundry hookup is probably more personal preference but once you have a laundry closer to where you remove and put on your clothes you'll never go back :-) As to the bath, I can't imagine having to go downstairs to use a bathroom.

[trader4]

I don't see why h is even asking. She says she is happy with the closet size she already has, doesn't care about resale, and intends to live there the rest of her life. She disregarded the architect's advice, which I think was valid. So, then just build whatever she wants. What does it matter what any of us think?

[keith]

Our house has the solution to that problem; two walk in closets in the master suite. ;-) Of course I got the smaller one, but that's OK, she got the linen chest (stupid builder didn't fit in a linen closet downstairs).

[Colbyt]

I see a lot of closets in my installation business. Newer homes have larger closets. Closets are also sized along with the selling price of the home, bigger = bigger. The latest trend I am seeing on the upper end homes is that most people store all their clothing in the closet. Many of the high end ones have built in drawers and sweater shelves and so on. One could spend almost as much in a master closet as they do on kitchen cabinets. -:)

A 300K plus home should have at least a 10x12 for the MBR. Most newer

200K homes have that as a minimum for the MBR.

Our MB is to the rear of our BR and one walks a short hall to enter it. There is a walk-in closet to the left and right of that hall. Both were built as 6x8 with a bypass door on the center of the 8' span. There is a chase for the chimney out of one taking a 2x2 cut in the corner. I use that one and the wife overflows the larger one. I, personally store nothing in drawers except out of season items. I even hang my tee-shirts. Socks and jockys are in a wire basket. Everything I use on a daily basis is in the closet. I don't do it that way to emulate the bigger homes, I do it that way because I like it that way. For my lifestyle I have more than enough room, but keep in mind that clothes aren't my thing.

Men with lots of suits, suit jackets and shoes or boots would most likely fill it. I see closets larger than both ours that are overflowing with clothes. Depends on the lifestyle of the homeowner.

I realize you don't give a hoot about resale right now but only a fool would completely disregard it. Think about the neighborhood, what type of buyer would buy your remodeled home? Consider the price range. Make an informed choice and do what you want. It is your home.

[h]

We already have a full bath upstairs in the origanal section of the house. The one-story living room was added in the early-1900s. We'll be adding on a much larger two-story addition in 2012 which will have a small, separate-entrance office/client area with a half bath, and a 24x40 garage down, with a master bath, commercial washer and dryer, and an enormous industrial workspace upstairs.

By the time both construction projects are completed we'll have more than doubled the size of the house and my workspace can move from the garage into the house, where I'll have plumbing and real heat! I'm so sick of running down the stairs and across the deck and into the house every time I need the bathroom. In the winter I have to shovel my way to and from. I'm SO not going to miss that! Also, having a separate office for clients means that I won't have to make sure the entire downstairs is pristine in case they have to use the bathroom.

We're doing it in two stages because the existing detached garage will need to be knocked down for the new addition, and I wouldn't have any place to work for at least a month, plus no place to store my equipment. Once the new master bedroom is built I'll move my work space in there for 18 months until we move to stage two.

[BobR]

When we added a second story onto our house some years back it was a bit larger with a Master Bedroom, Master Batch, Setting/TV area and my homve Office all included. The walking master closet was 14' wide and

14' long. The builders thought it was another bedroom since it was almost as large. The layout was designed for my wife with me as an afterthought. The entrance was sliding mirrored doors wide enough for both sides to be open at the same time. My wife had one side and the entire back while I was allowed to use the other side with some space for suitcases and other stored items. Down the middle of the closet was a built in cabinet four feed wide, eight feet long, and eight feet high. Cieling in closet was 10 feet. The upper clothes racks were high with a motorized canteleaver to bring them down for access. The lower racks were mixed full length and half racks. I put in a seat and full length mirror at the back for my wife who preferred it for most of her use. (In spite of having full length mirror on doors.) The final touch was a huge shoe rack on one side at the back that hid a jewlery safe. I know, it was a huge overkill but my wife loved it. Now about that master bath....

[h]

I live out in the boonies and can only see most of my neighbors in the winter when there are no leaves. We have tiny 600 sq ft farmhouses and 5000 sq ft McMansions in the mile-and-a-half between my house and the nearest cross street. There are also several other in-home businesses on this road, so it seems to be more about how you intend to use the house rather than its selling price. The McMansions seem to be 4br, 5.5baths, with gobs of wasted "living space", vaulted ceilings, etc. My final living space will be about

3800 sq ft, with 4br, 3.5baths, separate office and huge workspace. My architect says it's really 6br, because the office and the workspace count as bedrooms. Umm, no.

[HerHusband]

First, the basics...

Hanging clothes need at least 2' of depth, and the walkway should be 3' wide to avoid feeling cramped. So, minimum width would be 5' if you have hanging clothes on one side, or 7' if you have hanging clothes on both sides. The length can be whatever you have space for (as small as 2' or as long as the house).

We designed and built our own house, and our master "suite" is roughly

23'x16', about the same as your proposed space. Our suite includes a 12'x15' bedroom, a 10'x10' master bath, and our 5'x10' master closet (inside room dimensions). We installed 3' doors in case we ever need to use a wheelchair, and the closet door opens into the bedroom, so it doesn't take space away from the closet.

We have have hanging rods on the LEFT side of the closet only. The first third of the 10' length has double hanging rods (one above the other) for my wife's shirts, skirts, and pants. The middle third has a higher single rod for hanging longer items like dresses, robes, etc. And the last third is the double hanging rods for my shirts and pants. There is a shelf above the middle section where we keep extra pillows and whatnot.

I built a wall mounted shelf (12" deep, and about 6' high) at the back end of the closet where we store shoes, hats, boxes of old cards/letters, etc. It's mounted high enough off the floor that we can slide our laundry basket under the shelf.

We have a small niche on the RIGHT side of our closet (about 4' wide x 16" deep that bumps into the bathroom area), where I built a set of 12 built-in drawers. That's where we keep our socks, underwear, lingerie, shorts, gloves, sheets for the bed, etc. My wife keeps her jewelry boxes and other do-dads on top of the built-in dresser.

The rest of the RIGHT side of our closet has hooks for belts and whatnot, and a full height mirror.

While the McMansion folks would probably find it unacceptable, we are more than happy with our "little" 5'x10' closet. We have plenty of room for clothes, and my wife uses it as her changing room since there's plenty of room to move around. We've lived here over five years and have never filled up the closet rods.

I would be happy to send you some pictures if you want. Just email me from the link on my web site at

Take care,

Anthony