Get matched with top closet pros in Columbia, LA

If you’re on a tight budget, the least expensive material you can buy for DIY closet shelves is chipboard, a.k.a. particle board. This inexpensive material is made from a pulp of sawdust, resin, and glue that’s pressed together under high temperature and pressure. As you can imagine, it’s not very sturdy and might buckle under your blue jean collection, so you should only use it if you’re storing very light items. 

Bump-out additions can add some space to a closet without requiring any significant structural work. This entails pushing back the existing rear or side of the closet, simply moving the wall into either an adjacent room or unused space. For ground-floor closets, this could even be extended to the exterior of the home, but that has its own complications. Bump-outs are a good discussion to have with your contractor if you’re just looking to increase the space a little—not renovate the entire closet space.

Although you can complete a closet frame in just an afternoon, finishing the entire closet will take a few days to a week. However, that’s still not as much as the average time it takes to remodel a closet, which can take anywhere from several weeks to more than a month. That’s because you also have to consider the time it will take to demolish the existing space, plan a new design, order materials, and actually install it. 

We use storage in nearly every room of the house, so it's no surprise that we lose track of things from time to time. The best way to organize storage is to declutter each year to cut down on auxiliary items that can be donated or tossed. Once you decide what's worth keeping, create an inventory list for all boxes you won't open for at least six months.