Eight storage features to keep wardrobes and closets organised

Although most of us have been at it from a young age, dressing oneself can be hard. Choosing items based on cut, colour, style and suitability to the day’s activities, environments and forecasted weather are all decisions to overcome. After all that, there’s the arduous task of actually finding them – now the only ones that will do, before changing one’s mind and starting all over again.

Our bedroom furniture, meanwhile, simply stands there, offensively mute and immobile, refusing to help as if it’s not part of the problem. When designed to be more flexible and adjustable, however, personalised storage systems that are more suited to the individual characteristics of our personal collections allow us to become the architects of our own dressing experience. Here is a selection of the imaginatively innovative features available for customisable wardrobe and closet systems, and what makes them so useful.

Drawers offer users easy access to the entire depth of a storage space with a near-effortless tug, but with that simplicity comes the temptation to overfill them, resulting in the various objects inside clattering, scratching and entangling with each other with every movement. 

By separating drawer interiors into specifically shaped and sized sections, sometimes lined with a grippier material such as the synthetic leather lining inside Rimadesio’s Zenit Night drawers, or with specialist elements such as watch holders or belt loops like in Laurameroni’s Line drawers, the furniture provides a specific home for each item, making them easier to find, and to notice when they’re not there.

The simple equation is that the lower the height of each drawer, the more of them can fit into the same space. But while more drawers equals more drawer bases and, ultimately, use up more space, by restricting the interior capacity of each drawer to just one layer like those in the Cabina Armadio storage system from Porro, users are able to see all contents at once, without having the employ any painstaking KonMari vertical folding.

Putting a pair of trousers on a hanger is one of the most frustrating tasks one can undertake in the bedroom – second only to folding a fitted sheet – so it’s a surprise we had to wait so long for a solution. Pull-out trouser racks like this from raumplus, however, were worth waiting for. But the racks have more uses than just keeping our pantaloons in check.

They can also be used to line up outfit options, to store pre-worn items that can be worn again – keeping them crease-free – or to hang air-dry or lay dry-flat clothes. By keeping the surfaces flat, meanwhile, pull-out tabletops like those available in Rimadesio’s Dress Bold system, give users a surface to place storage boxes taken from the unit’s uppermost shelves.

Little-used items on high shelves can be caked in dust when retrieved, and if height is a limiting factor, need the assistance of a step or stool that demands its own home. By installing a fold-down tabletop like the Flap Carcass from raumplus, the table both protects the box from dust and affords users a place to sort through it. But why should those of a shorter disposition have less storage space to utilise? Clothes lifts like this from raumplus allow for an additional clothes rail in a wardrobe, set above the first and made accessible by pulling down an attached hook.

As our shoes are mostly seen from a high angle, slanted shoe shelves that present the tops out toward us help users see and select the right pair easily. Those that position an upright stand two-thirds of the way back, meanwhile, like those in LAGO’s Outfit Walk-in Closet range, are able to hold both short and high-heeled shoes securely. As opposed to installing the shelf at an angle, Extendo’s PERSONAL system instead fixes racks on the bottom shelves for heels to hook onto. And keeping the shelves flat means they’re able to roll out for better access.

When stood before a wardrobe, carefully making one’s selection, you’ll inevitably be blocking out most of a room’s main light source. So wardrobe and closet systems with additional or integrated lighting systems present a clearer view of possible outfits. raumplus’ systems, for example, can include LED lighting at the base of the clothes rail itself, lighting up each item on the rack, while selecting glass as a material for drawer fronts, like those in Zalf’s Windy system, allows more light inside when open or closed.

When deciding on the layout of a bedroom or walk-in, it can be difficult to incorporate both clothes storage and a dressing table. By integrating the function of a dressing table within the closet, however, the combined homogenous unit becomes one fluid dressing solution. The Vanity unit, for example, fits perfectly alongside Rimadesio’s Modular Night system and provides small apothecary or stationery shelving, and LEMA’s Eureka Vanity unit neatly tucks all its drawers, shelving, lighting and even seat away behind its doors, blending in perfectly with the rest of the wardrobe scene.

When designers are searching for ways to provide more storage space, it’s essential to utilise every last square inch of a room’s layout. That’s simple enough when fitting square units into square rooms. But for more angular projects, a more bespoke made-to-measure solution can be seen as the only answer. Zalf’s Windy storage system, however, fixes shelving to adjustable supports of any height or angle, meaning they can stand securely underneath slanted ceilings.

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