Shaynna

With Sex in the City so prominent at the moment and the focus on fashions and shoes and so many changes, it begs to question: Where does it all go? If you constantly hear yourself saying “I haven’t anything to wear”, maybe it’s all there but you just cant find it!

When building a new wardrobe or fitting an existing one we spend so much energy wondering if the doors should be sliding or mirrored. Do we have timber, veneer or laminate? Do we have baskets or full drawers?

In fact, designing the wardrobe is all about the internals. The best wardrobes are designed around what you already have and will grow with you, not just a system to fill. The first and most important step is inventory, followed by culling and leaving room for future purchases.

As laborious and boring as it sounds, you will be tearing your hair out if your clothing ends up hanging into your shoes and you find yourself overstuffing your drawers. Double hanging systems have ‘doubled’ our wardrobe space but they don’t accommodate trousers hung at full length and dresses and coats of all differing lengths. If these differences aren’t taken into account you may leave valuable space wasted. Three quarter length dresses may leave room for shelving above or shoe racks underneath.

Once you have the hanging checked off you need to know how many jumpers, t-shirts and tops need to be on shelves or allocated to drawers. Then there is your lingerie, underwear and socks. Many times I have heard people say, ‘Oh we only need a drawer each’, when in fact they needed one each for underwear, lingerie and socks and their partner needed one for underwear, one for sports socks as well as one for suit/dress socks.

For some, the most important feature is the area delegated for the shoes. Having them displayed lovingly like a shoe shop is glamorous but we can’t all be Carrie Bradshaw. If you are short on space (and messy- be realistic!) this cuts into valuable hanging or shelf space. A solution could be to rotate your shoes seasonally as you would winter jumpers and summer dresses. Shoes can be stored in boxes up high in clear storage shoe-boxes with a photo on the front for easy access. There are many online shopping stores to choose from. Or maybe only have the five most used pair of shoes in the wardrobe and the remainder stored in another area of the house.

The wardrobe is also a place for your accessories. Your bags can be neatly arranged on shelving, scarves folded on a pullout shelf, belts rolled individually in drawers or in baskets on a shelf, and jewellery drawers can be built in with a shelf and a mirror above. Wardrobe and building stores have a great range of accessories to put in your wardrobe at a great price without compromising the look and function. For those with a large area, do you need a mirror for dressing and properly positioned lighting to see you at your best?

Once these mechanics are noted, it lays the foundation for the best possible functioning wardrobe so you can access your clothes quickly and easily. Which leads you back to the first point. Where’s that outfit for going to the movies?