Wardrobe Closets

While at one time the term linen closet was used as an apt description specifically for storing and holding linens, the term is now used to describe the storage closet or storage area where ones stores not necessarily linens specifically, but any and all related items, such as towels and washclothes for the bathrooms, toiletries, and extra blankets and sheets.

Nearly every home is now built in with a linen closet by the bathroom. These are the tall, narrow closets you find in the hallway near the bathroom or sometimes the bedroom.

But what if your home doesn’t have a built in linen closet? This article will address this question by pointing to some helpful products and ideas you can use as linen closet storage.

Options for
Linen Closet Storage

Or “What Do To When You
Have No Built In Linen Closet?

You use a free standing
closet instead, most likely!”

If your home or apartment doesn’t have a built in linen closet, or any closet nearby the bathroom for storing extra blankets, towels, sheets, and so on, short of designing and building a closet into the walls (a topic for another article!), your options basically all revolve around buying a stand alone closet or a combination of closet organizer or closet furniture accessories to hold such items. The amount of storage closets and related accessories that fall under this category is immense, as just about every article on this discusses a different type of closet that fits in with this definition. So let’s separate the wheat from the chaff and recommend some products specifically for linen closet storage.

Since we want to be budget conscious about this, we’ll start with the cheapest items first and move on to progressively more expensive linen closet storage solutions.

1. The ever classy *wink wink* “over the toilet” storage option.

This option works in real life much better than it sounds in print. The term “over the toilet storage” is unlikely to be found on any company’s website as part of their sales pitch. Lucky for us, we’re not selling anything, so we can call it like it is!

Anyhow, an open “closet” storage item like this, with two legs and a metal frame (often wrought iron) consisting of multiple open storage shelves, works very well for holding many of the same items a linen closet is purported to be used for. It also ironically makes them even more accessible for someone who needs them.

For instance, if you realize you need a towel when you’re out of the shower, would you rather walk down the hall and get it from the linen closet or simply reach above the commode and find a fresh towel to dry off with?

By the way, the one featured here costs $89 from Target, is made of wrought iron, and can hold 25 pounds – more than enough for our purposes here. It’s not “really” a linen closet or linen cabinet, but for many people, it’s just as good and will save them money, so I wanted to start it off as the first one on our list!

2. Bath Storage Tower from Ameriwood

You can also buy a free standing storage tower like this one from Ameriwood, designed with bathroom and linen storage needsin mind. As you can see from the picture above, this bathroom storage tower lets you store items both openly and behind closed doors – perfect for keeping extra towels and wash cloths on hand while keeping more private needs nearby, like extra toilet paper.

Available from Target for $89. Assembly required. Note that some reviewers found this bath storage tower’s assembly instructions to be kind of hard to follow and/or flat out noting that assembly was a problem. I’m including this here now just to let others know who may have read this before and thought about buying it.

3. Bathroom Espresso Towel Shelf/Rack from X-Frame

Spending a few more dollars – $130 versus the two items above priced at under $100 – you can really get an awesome looking storage unit from Target for the bathroom.

This is my favorite one on the list – just look at that photo! It looks awesome.

I wish there was just one or two more shelves for storage, but with 4 swuare storage areas boxed in on this shelf, you can definitely hold a respectable number of towels, sheets, and linens.

And while this tower could stand to be taller or equipped with at least one covered shelf or drawer, it makes up for it with it slick looking design.

4. Bathroom Storage / Linen Cabinet from Ameriwood

Ameriwood is making it twice onto the list, and for good reason. Costing $150, for about twice as much as the item featured in number two, you can buy a fantastic wooden bathroom storage cabinet. This solid wood cabinet features both open and closed storage areas and tops it all of in an espresso finish.

Mimmicking the design of a real built in linen closet, it’s tall and narrow and provides enough space for all the things you’d normally hold in a linen closet, except now you will probably have them directly available in the bathroom – exactly where those items are needed the most!

This is a close tie with the previous item in terms of how cool it looks. What this cabinet offers in additional to looking great is twice as much functional storage space!

It’s winter time yet again, isn’t it?

I live in the south, and we’ve recently been hit with our sporadic dose of Carolina winter weather. You never know when it’s going to come – it may be November, it may be January, heck, it may even be February or March. But despite our winter season being quite mild, at some point those winter jackets are coming out of hiding and onto our backs.

Our home has no closet by the door. It’s almost an odd thing to notice – the house itself (not mine, my roommates) is very nice, and there’s ample opportunity as far as storage space to have had a closet built in by the door for us to store our coats.

But nope – no closet.

Which is what led me to look at shopping around for good free standing coat closets. I learned a thing or two about them in the process; important points about coat closets that I thought I’d share here with you, dear reader.

Coat Closets: What to Look for in a Good Coat Closet

1. There are a lot of options. It helps to know first what you are looking for.
What I mean by this is that there isn’t just a single type of closet furniture that you can point to and say “that’s a coat closet” that doesn’t have other uses, and vice versa. Many storage closets are sold to hold a variety of items, from office supplies to a persons wardrobe to coats. Some are wide open, like a wood garment rack, and others have closed doors, like a 3 door wardrobe armoire. Some are meant to be lightweight and basically portable. Others are meant to be heavy duty. The latter we are more interested in, which brings us to the next point.

2. It should hold a lot of weight since winter clothing is heavy.
A coat closet gets the most use when it’s the coldest outdoors, and this is precisely the time when the durability of a coat closet comes into play. When shopping for a coat closet, look for the maximum amount of weight it can hold. The more, the better.

3. You can definitely keep find a coat closet under $300.
The wide range of prices in coat closets reflects how willing we are to pay for a nice piece of furniture. But there come a point in which you don’t really get much more functionality for your money. Now by all means, if the coat closet is intended to add to the room as a piece of furniture in its own way, then feel free to leave the budget out of the picture. But if your main concern is simply having a solid wood coat closet, you can find something like this for about $300 or less that will do the trick. Any more than that and you’re paying for aesthetics, which may or may not be worth it for you.

4. Before you spend all that money, organize any nearby closet first that could function as coat closet.
If you’ve already got a closet by the front door, why not use that as the coats closet? If the reason is that it’s jammed pack full of clothes already, you might be surprised to learn how much space can be leveraged out of a messy closet by first organizing. For some ideas on closet organization, take a look at our articles on closet organizers.

5. High quality, durable hangers belong in a high quality coat closet.
After going to the trouble of buying, shipping, unpacking, and then assembling a coat closet, don’t bring things down a notch by using cheap hangers that will end up being more trouble than they’re worth. Coats are heavy, and if you use light, cheap hangers, they are going to either snap or hold the coat lopsided, or worse yet, let it slip off. It’s better to invest in a good dozen set of quality, strong coat hangers from the start than to buy bad ones and then replace them when they break.

There comes a time in life that after years and years of working our tails off, we finally get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We spend the first 30 years of our life accumulating debt, the next 20 paying it off and then finally, we get to treat ourselves to something like the Modus Armoire furniture. There simply may not be a better name when it comes to high quality bedroom armoires.

The Modis Nevis Armoire in Espresso retails for about $815 on Amazon.com and is available via their Prime Membership. This means expediting shipping that is 100% free. The cost of shipping this product alone will make up for the annual fee of $79. This is the ideal bedroom armoire that can serve as a beautiful wardrobe closet or for the TV. There is also storage featured via two pull out drawers.

The Modus Newport Armoire is also priced around $815 and has all of the same Amazon.com benefits of the Nevis. It is made from pure Tropical Mahogany and is solid wood. Like the Nevis, it is ideal as a wardrobe closet or to tuck the television away in. The English dovetail joiners and contemporary brushed chrome knobs (also available in shaker-style) really set this apart from all others in its class.

While both of those models are beautiful, the Modus Hudson Armoire is truly a signature piece. Once again, it is available on Amazon.com with Prime benefits and sells for about $1,100. That price is actually a steal as it is listed for well over $1,500 at many other online retailers. Made from Eastern Ash and featuring English dovetail joinery, any bedroom immediately moves up a level in class when this is placed in the room.

Modus is just one of many makers of expensive wardrobe closet furniture. Many of them can be found on Amazon.com and a variety of other sites. For this type of furniture, it is hard to beat the deals that Amazon offers. Their prime membership can be put to great use on something like this and if you don’t already have it, sign up and take advantage of the 30 day free trial to get the free expedited shipping. While you may get lucky and find this item slightly cheaper on other sites, they will charge at least $100 shipping and that will more than eat up the small discount.

It is easy to organize coats and jackets in the summer time as they can be put away in the garage or attic until winter time arrives. But it is more difficult during the cold months to keep all of the coats that the family needs orderly.  Wardrobe coat closets can organize your coats and can offer storage for other items as well.

When winter rolls around, all of the cold weather gear is pulled out to be worn, which can create issues with storage. Would it not be much easier to simply have a space for all of these items where they can be stored safely when not in use and yet ready for the cold days of winter? Using wardrobe coat closets or even the classic wardrobe closet armoires are a great way to do this.

These come with drawers for storing hats, mittens and gloves where they can be out of the way and still easily accessed. Everything that is worn in the cold weather can be kept in these wardrobe coat closets without having to drag them out of other storage areas.

Not only are all of the cold weather items going to be safely stored, but these wardrobes and armoires are quite stunning to look at. Many come in all of the popular hard wood types as well as stains. They even come in more modern looks for those who have a more contemporary décor style.

There is no need to look at jackets, hats and gloves strewn all over the house when it is so easy to organize them. Using a wardrobe or armoire is the most practical as well as aesthetically pleasing way to keep these garments organized and ready to be used when the weather gets cold.  And to think, your clothing will no longer smell like moth balls from digging it out of storage every September!

Oak is probably one of the most common woods that is used for bedroom sets today, at least quality ones. Oak has a very rich look to it and is flexible enough to blend with almost any setting. Whether it is painted or finished, oak has long been a favorite. There is no better way to compliment a beautiful oak bedroom set than with an oak wardrobe closet.

Everyone eventually needs some extra storage space. Moving is always an eye opener to see how much stuff has been accumulated when the best of efforts was made not to do exactly that. Nobody wants to keep burying their clothes in boxes and there really isn’t a need to if you have an oak wardrobe closet to hold what the regular closets cannot hold.

The moment people hear oak being talked about, they automatically think that the piece of furniture is going to cost a ton of money. While there are furniture pieces that will put a dent into the bank account, there are just as many that are very affordable and will still look very nice. A little bargain shopping on the Internet will go a long way in securing something that will look good and not cost as much as the rest of the bedroom set.

The Ameriwood Wardrobe with 3 Doors and 3 Drawers has a beautiful oak finish on it and costs less than $400. It is packed with space for suits, dresses, shirts and just about anything else you can think of. It is the perfect secondary storage area that will not stick out like a sore thumb in the bedroom, or any room for that matter.

Of course, if having just an oak finish on your wardrobe storage closet is not enough, the Diversified Woodcrafts Oak Wardrobe Storage Closet ($1,879) will cost a pretty penny, but the wardrobe closet is oak through and through. Again, there is plenty of space and it will look incredible in any setting.

The choices for this type of furniture are truly endless. As you can see, there are lower end models that have an oak finish, but look just as good as some of the higher priced items. However, there really is nothing like real oak and when the perfect piece is found, it really brings a look of richness to the whole room.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the best expensive closets out there. This article is aimed at folks who know they want to spend a large amount of money on a closet system, closet organizer, stand alone closet, or wardrobe closet armoire, and want to buy an expensive closet in order to get the best of the best. All the closets discussed in this article range from about $300 to $550.

The JLH-525

Here we have a wonderful closet shelving system from John Louis Horne. This 16 inch deep, solid wood honey maple closet storage unit, model JLH-525 is very impressive looking while also providing highly versatile storage. (Pictured here is a solid maple finish but the JLH 525 is also available in mahogany.)

Take a look at that shelving system that goes from the top to the bottom of the unit! Each shelve measure 16 inches deep, providing a very generous amount of space for your folded clothing, shoes, towels, and other wardrobe items. As you can see, there’s not one, not two, but three metal wardrobe bars for hanging your clothes, as well as a storage area that runs the length of the unit on top for holding additional items.

A perk of using a John Loius Horne closet shelf system such as the JLH-525 is that it’s expandable. JLH makes additional closet storage shelves that can be attached and added on to this unit in case you ever need more storage, although that’s hard to imagine looking at the features and size of this one!

The John Louis Horne JLH-525 closet shelving system costs about $500.

Freestanding Closet

Next up we have a very unique looking item which would look great in an open studio apartment or loft that didn’t have ample closet storage built in and the idea of installing wall mounted storage just isn’t an option. What then? You buy a stand alone closet! This is the Freestanding Closet by InterMetro. It’s got a closet rod for hanging clothes built in between two freestanding closet storage areas, one for hanging additional clothes and the other for folded items. This would work best outside of the closet in an open room or a large walk in closet with lots of space to accommodate this unit, with its four 18 x 36 inch shelves, 74 posts, and a 36 clothes hanger tube. InterMetro sells this white freestanding closet for about $340.

French Country Wardrobe Armoire

Okay, up next we have something that fits in nicely for this site; after all, this is a wardrobe closet guide, right? Picture here is a beautiful French Country Wardrobe Closet. It’s got 2 doors on top and 4 small bottom drawers. This solid wood wardrobe armoire is made of sturdy materials with a beautiful hand designed finish, complete with curved panels and beadboard detailing. This white French Country Wardrobe Armoire will run you about $550.

AmeriWood 9155 Wardrobe Cabinet

If you appreciate the design of the armoire, but prefer a solid wood wardrobe closet, this two door AmeriWood 9155 wardrobe cabinet may be for you. Weighing in at over 200 pounds, this is no cheap “Made in China” armoire that will fall a part on you after a year! Standing 72 inches tall with an both top and bottom storage, this two door modern wardrobe armoire runs anywhere from $350 to $550.