Being part of a large family can be a great experience full of warmth, activity, and solidarity. But you find out soon enough that the metropolitan world is not designed for you. There are homes throughout the Washington DC metro area, for instance, where not every bedroom has a closet, or where kids share a bedroom that has a tiny closet nowhere near big enough for them.

One of the best solutions that we have discovered to the big family/small closets conundrum is consolidation. Your kids may not be too good at sharing their possessions, but with a little design magic, sharing a closet is not so hard. Mom and Dad can even have a place, too. Here at Closet America, we have a few family closet ideas that make it all easy. 

Family Closet Ideas to Suit Everybody and Their Stuff

Sometimes matching kids to bedrooms and closets takes a bit of imagination, to say the least—and sometimes, it just doesn’t feel possible. Many large families solve their storage problems by customizing a large walk-in closet to accommodate everyone’s needs. Depending on the house, it may be a closet, or it may be a small room that is converted into a closet. In any case, the secret to sharing a closet happily is to use your design resources well to create the kind of storage you need, mark out discrete personal spaces, and fill all the space you have available. The kids will take pride in their spiffy new personal spaces, and it will be easier than ever for them to stay neat and organized.

Most often, family closets are used for clothes, but there is no reason not to store other things there as well. A method that often works well is to install adjustable shelves and drawers that can be divided up among family members, and add rods in upper and lower rows separately that can be divided up evenly as well. This way, every family member has a section for flat storage and something hanging—say, on the opposite wall from their shelves. 

Shoe shelves can be installed under the drawers close to the floor. Little kids may prefer chrome baskets close to the floor and doorless lockers above them where some of their clothes can be stacked and others hung on hooks. Up above their heads, you can store the stuff they don’t need to access themselves, or somebody else’s overflow. (Avoiding overflow whenever possible is important, though. We strongly recommend a closet purge before you fill up your new family closet.)

That’s the basic layout. There’s nothing revolutionary in it. It’s just well-designed. To make even more room in your family closet, be sure to include super space savers like retractable rods to hang belts, ties and scarves on and wardrobe lifts to use the space all the way up to the ceiling. Drawers can be customized to hold jewelry or other small items, and locks can be placed on them, if desired. 

If you’re wondering where you could fit a family closet in your home, consider the laundry room. Laundry rooms often have unused space, and it can be very convenient to have the family clothes closet right next to it. If you partition off the washer and dryer, making a small room for them, then convert the remaining space into your family closet, you can keep dirty clothes contained close to the washer and put the freshly laundered clothes away in only a few steps. You can install pullout hampers in the closet itself or in the laundry room, and even have a foldout ironing board nearby. 

Making a Family Closet Work for You

As we say, the only revolution you need for making this new closet system work is in design. The choices are simple, but they have to be right for every member of your family. To get the freshest family closet ideas and make sure you’re taking full advantage of the possibilities a family closet offers, we highly recommend using the services of a professional designer. As a matter of fact, we feel so strongly about this that we include a free design consultation with one of our design experts as the first step in our four-step customer satisfaction process. 

Your family closet will be an area of intensive use, so it is critical to have the sturdiest construction and highest-quality materials available. Closet America knows this, which is why:

• We use ¾-inch thermo-fused laminate shelving in a variety of finishes. It’s easy to clean and never sags. 
• Our drawers are dovetailed and have slides on the bottom for full extension. 
• All of our organization systems are floor-standing, with built-in levelers for safety and stability.
• All of our organization systems come with a transferrable lifetime warranty and lifetime service guarantee.

Are you ready to get your family’s storage under control with a family closet? Contact Closet America today.