Most homes come outfitted with standard white wire ventilated shelving. A wire system that will if not already bend and start to pull away from the wall. Not to mention all of the wasted space above and below the hanging clothes. Fortunately, there is a better way to organize this closet and capture this wasted space with River City Closets.
You are probably thinking,
“How much would a custom closet cost?”
A closet professional would say the closet investment would be about $100 to $150 per linear foot in White. What does this mean? Taking our example to the left, the closet is 8 feet wide, or 8 linear feet. All of these closets pictured are designed to be 8 linear feet wide. If we multiply the closet width by the approximate cost the investment would be between (8’ X $100 =) $800 and (8’ X $150=) $1,200. This should give you a good gauge of what to expect when the closet professional comes out, takes exact measurements and develops a detailed computer design based on your needs and wishes. You might be thinking “why is there a $400 difference between the two numbers for the same closet"? Great question. Let’s dig a little deeper and figure out why there is a difference.
Keep in mind “You get what you pay for in life", and this could not be truer in organizing closets!
Its All About the Design
The closet above will hold all of your existing hanging items and give you an entire shelf tower of extra space. This is possible because the right side was double-hung. Double hang coupled with long hang provides almost the same linear feet of hanging space of your existing closet. We can even get the investment down lower by “cheapening” the design as shown on the right. If we look close we can see there is a slight variance in the design when compared to above. One less shelf above the long hang, two less shelves in the center and one less shelf above the pole on the lower right. “Cheapening the closet” is a practice that should never be followed. Don’t look to save a few dollars by sacrificing design and storage capacity. Your closet will be used several times a day for years to come.
Features and details
Let’s focus our attention on the design to the left. This closet looks exactly like the first closet except we have added drawers. The investment for this closet is about $150 per linear foot or $1,200 total. In essence, you are investing about $520 in drawers. Remember above “You get what you pay for?” The drawers will be unlike anything you have in your existing dresser or armoire. The drawers have full extension ball-bearing drawer runners and they also come in full extension self-close. The drawer box is made out of birch plywood and the drawer face can be modern, shaker, pillow top, raised panel or Italian Premier. If you subscribe to the principle “Do it right the first time,” this is exactly why such quality goes into closet drawers. How many times have you opened your dresser drawer to find there are no runners underneath but rather wood on wood slides? The drawer rocks side to side when opened and quite possibly the bottom is falling out. Would it be safe to say you spent in excess of $520 for this dresser? Maybe you want things a little more compartmentalized. This redesign investment is about $1,290, or $160 per linear foot. It provides more of a his/hers closet, giving less width for long hang and more space for regular hang and shelving. The reason for the investment increase is we added more panels and more shelving.
Can you get a closet at a lower investment? You sure can.
Remember above, “You get what you pay for?” Closets can be cheaper by settling for the following:
• Decreasing the depth of the panels down to 12”. Remember the wire or wooden shelf/pole in your existing closet? That is 12” deep. Why use something which is a problem from the start? Adult folded clothes hang over any shelf less than 14”.
• Flat faced drawer fronts are less expensive as they are a simple shelf edge
banded on all four sides. Flat should not be confused with the more robust
modern seamless drawer face.
• Oval poles instead of round. Oval is less expensive and used solely due
to price.
• 3⁄4 extension drawer runners. Back to the similar situation of your existing
dresser digging in the back of the drawer.
JUST REMEMBER CHEAPER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
In summary, you called a closet company asking “How Much Does A Custom Closet Cost?” You were quoted between $800 and $1,200 over the phone. In our examples above we narrowed down the investment from $680 for a basic closet up to $1,290 for a closet with more options. Of course, we can take the design and easily turn it into a closet valued greater than $2,000 by adding tie & belt racks, valet rods, velvet lined jewelry inserts, crown molding, base molding, backing, hamper and changing the color. Please use caution if you use this pricing model for your walk in closet. There are other considerations in walk-in closets,kitchen pantries, garages, etc that were not covered in this article that will skew this pricing model.
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