Ladies and Gents, we’ve been duped. Pop culture has given us unrealistic closet expectations. From MTV Cribs to Sex & the City to HGTV, we’ve been made to think that a closet with built-in shelving will solve all our problems, and that if we had a walk-in closet with built in shelving, we’ve found the holy grail.
Exhibit A: Carrie's reaction to the closet Big built for her.
That’s not wrong. It’s just not realistic.
Look, give me enough space and enough money, and I’ll build myself a closet the size of my current apartment or larger. But that’s the problem: most of us lack the space and money. If you’re a renter like me, you get whatever closet space they give you. Mine happens to come with a few built-in units. And I hate them. Why? Because they don’t work for me. The space isn’t being efficiently used for the amount and type of stuff that I have. If I were diagnosing my own closet hang-up, it would be a BSB classic: I Want It That Way. Or maybe it would be the unparalleled Frank Sinatra anthem: My Way. In any event, that’s how I feel about built-ins. I want it that way, and that way is my way.
Allow me to explain.
Your closet needs to work for you, not against you. The best way to get it to work for you is to tell it what you want (what you really really want). If you’re renting, you can’t really do that; but, you can figure out how to work with the closet and get it to a place where it works for you anyway. If you own, maybe it’s easier; at a minimum, you don’t have to ask for permission to change the configuration. But maybe you can’t afford to convert a room into a walk-in, or even to add some elfa shelving to the space you’ve got. Or maybe you bought a home with what appears to be a perfect walk-in with fantastic built-ins, and then you start unpacking and realize, oh crap, this does not work for what you're working with.
Here’s my point.
Built-ins aren’t evil, but they’re evil-adjacent. They look great and make you think they’re going to change your whole world, but unless you’ve thought them out and planned them relative to your stuff and how you’re going to use them, they’re going to disappoint you in some way. And they’re going to make you work harder to make your closet what you want it to be. But there’s a happy ending: with some thought and some time, you and the built-ins that were forced upon you can get to a good place. If, however, you’re one of those lucky bitches who actually has the holy grail in sight, and can customize your built-in unit, I bow to you and hate you all at once.