I have a long, very narrow walk-in closet. I HATE IT!!!! I am not sure of the exact dimensions but there is no way you can hang clothes on both sides and even with clothes hung on one side it's tight. If this house hadn't been perfect for our needs in all other ways there is no way I would have purchased this house. Since you are renovating now do what you can to avoid a tight closet.

I have a 4 foot deep by 7 foot wide closet. One 4 foot side has 1 hanging row. The opposite side has two hanging rows, and I have 3 feet of hanging space on the back wall. There is ample room to reach everything. It's like the illustration that robo zone 6a shows, but with an additional 3 foot rod on the back wall, and double doors to enter. Each door is 18" wide.

I'm very happy with the closet. There's 15 feet of hanging space and 15 feet of shelf space, not to mention 28 square feet of floor space. DH has a similar sized closet, but the arrangement of hanging and shelf space is different to suit his needs.

suero - how do you like or dislike how the corners work in your arrangement? I ask because I have a 5d x 7w closet similar to yours and did not put hanging space along the back wall in order to better access the last 2 feet of clothes...but am wondering if I would like some.

I have to share mine with my husband...it's crowded!

Thank you all for weighing in here. I wasn't sure at all if 48" would be enough or not and it sounds like not. (It was the number that came up quickly on a search for info.)I stink at drawing layouts. The window shouldn't be at risk as it is 53" from the current closet door.I only wanted to hang clothes on one side, not two, but it sound like 60" would be needed even for that?

Tibbrix - the reachin closet is currently 136" long and the part where you reach in (I thought that was depth?) is 28"

MissyMoot - I don't mind the reach-in but I hate the doors. There are three of them and there no way to ever see everything in there.

Robozone, I think understand what you are talking about - you would put the openings into the bedroom but then how far would it stick out into the bedroom? I think I would lose too much of the actual bedroom. But I will play with that (Separate closets don't really matter to me. I am no longer in the corporate work and work at home in comfy clothes all day.)

Tibbrix we are trying to make the best of the exisiting footprint of the house before move in so I don't think there is really any other place at the moment to do a closet. Perhaps in the next phase when we totally redo the master bathroom since we will be bumping out to do that.

Sounds like maybe we need to just leave it as a reach in for now and figure out how to see what is in it then reconfigure a closet on the big reno for this room.

This is the extra space I will gain when we close off this hall. The white door leads to the master bath/laundry room. That room is only 13.5 long by 4' wide (with a little bump out on one end that will become new entrance.) Laundry room is moving out of the space. When we do the bump out of the exterior wall I will have much more room.

So I guess then the question is - how to handle that long closet as a reach in so I can see everything in it?

I have a narrow walk-in closet like the one you are contemplating. It's about 14' long, enter at the short end, clothes (hanging and drawers) are IKEA built-ins on the full length of one side only (on the other short end, we've hung hooks on a couple of rails - we hang backpacks etc. on those; on the other long wall, we have 1) shallow shoe shelves, 2) laundry basket, 3) a little stool for me to sit on while I put on my socks and shoes, and 4) my jewelry holder. I had hoped it would be 66" wide, but it ended up being only 60" because there was something in the way (a window I think). I think it's as narrow as it can possibly be while still being functional. I can take pictures later if you want to see what it looks like.

My proposal was to keep the 48" depth you proposed, but divide it up so you enter from the bedroom instead of the bathroom.

Here's a mockup keeping your current closet, but framing out the opening so you can replace your giant sliding doors with two sets of 24" regular doors. The doors would be hinged to swing out into your bedroom, taking up 24" of space in your walkway.

This would mean you have 96" of opening in your 136" closet -- the rest of the space you have to kind of reach in past the door. But I don't think it should be too bad. Each square in this drawing is 2". The other compromise is you can't put furniture right directly in front of the doors - but really you couldn't anyway with the sliding doors since you have to walk there.

sf7307 I would love to see photos of your space.

robozone - aha! I got it now! Thank you. You know, even if I don't make the closet a lot deeper I have been wondering if splitting the current closet like that would be a good idea. When I go back over to the house on Friday I will take more photos. (Every time I get home I wish I had photos from a different angle. House is being tented for termites right now.)

If I knock out the end wall on the left of the current closet then I could extend the space another few feet and I could still make them deeper if it would give us more storage space. I like this idea too. Thank you!

Not sure exactly how your layout goes but consider if you could use that extra couple of feet in the master bath as a linen closet. I'm projecting but I desperately need more storage in my master bath.

Yes I will need more linen type storage as well so that is a definite possibility.

We had pocket doors installed on my large step-in closet during our remodel, and that really improves the usability of the space. It's about 4 feet deep, so access is on the wide side instead of making it a narrow walk-in.

Robo

I have no problem accessing clothes in the corners, however I do hang the less frequently worn items there.

Susan, here's the promised picture. It doesn't seem to be showing the left side, so I'll click "submit" and if it doesn't work, I'll post another. I also just measured, and it's actually 64" wide. Unfortunately, I don't think it would work if it were any narrower.

So it did work, although the proportions look funny! It's actually about 14' long (from where I'm standing to wall with the hanging backpacks), 64" wide from the wall with the hanging jewelry thing to the back wall of the builtin, and the ceiling is about 10'.

Thanks for sharing the picture. That is very helpful. We go back over to the property in a few days so I will do some more measuring to see what I can do.

My husband's long, narrow, closet is 52" wide. The designer recommended we put the hanging rods on both short walls and (mostly) shelving on the long wall. If you send me a message through this site, I'll email you pics (I can't seem to get to the photos I have saved on my computer's hard drive when I click on the "photo" function here).

Hi. Just curious how this turned out? We've got a closet similar to this - 129" long x 51" wide. It's a guest room currently and doesn't have much stuff in it, but we are about to covert it to a MBR to be closer to our baby, and ordering a custom closet to make the most of the space. It doesn't feel narrow to me at the moment, but that's probably because there's not much in it, plus there's a window on the unusable wall that brightens it up. We are planning to put a row of drawers and shelves on the back, clothes along the left, and keep the front part when you walk in fairly open so not to crowd the doorway. I've attached a picture of the current space (picture 1). Ironically, our master closet is set up they same way, although about 10" wider. The previous owners had it way too crowded and it felt very tiny, bad enough that my husband almost didn't want the house all due to the "tiny" master closet. But it feels spacious with our re-design - picture 2! I'd love to hear how yours turned out!

Actually we redesigned the space in such a way that we can use the existing long, reach-in closet. Renovations for the master suite space started last week.

Don't know if this is still a viable thread or not, but I was searching for ideas for our closet. We purchased our home which was built in 1955 as a flip this past August. The re-did everything inside including relocating the master closet which ended up being a 4' wide by 10' long walk in. It wasn't until we started hanging stuff in it that we realized there was no way to use the hanging space on both sides, so most everything is on the left side currently.

I'm thinking of splitting it in the future to give a 4x4 space back to the room it was taken from and then merge that room's current closet with the first room to make a "wall" of closet in there. The first room is my office and I desperately need the storage space in there!

In the meantime I'm going to see about some of these solutions you all have suggested...and I'd love to see some more photos of any narrow closet solutions you've come up with. I'll dig up some photos of my conundrum in the meantime .

We ended up just leaving the reach-in closet rather than trying to reconfigure anything.

Kathy, clothes on a rod take up about 22" of space. That would leave you only 26" for a walkway with absolutely nothing on the opposite side. As I said, ours is 64" wide, and I don't think it would work (well) if it were any narrower (see pix above).

Actually, sjhockeyfan325, we should be okay with things that are pretty flush to the wall on the right side. The numbskull builders actually did put the shelving in, and I believe upon realizing it was too narrow, that they cut the lower shelf in half so that it's not right up to the door. I would remove that, as it is about a 16" deep wire shelf that infringes far too much into the walk-in space. Right now, it's virtually unusable, so anything we do will be an improvement ;-).

Very nice!

Wow! That's stunning Rebecca! I thought the California Closet style units would be too much for the space, but you certainly proved that wrong! Will be showing these pics to the hubby ;-).

Glad they helped, Kathy! It made a big difference for us to add those enclosed cabinets and drawers to hide the ugly stuff and not make it feel over crowded when you first walk in. The 2nd picture really doesn't d it justice - it doesn't feel crowded at all, and there's a row of little cubbies along the bottom left wall too for belts, sweaters, shoe overflow, etc.

It is amazing what a good closet system will do for a small space. We lost space in our master bedroom/bath remodel but with a great closet system, now have plenty and better space in our closet. Yours turned out great! Love the chandelier.

Sorry I'm not much help on closet design. I have a kooky house where I had to get imaginative. But for those of you with narrow closets this little gizmo is fabulous. It only sticks out around 10", it's strong and holds a lot. It also holds good weight with heavy terry robes and more. You can also double hang some of the rings. it's on Amazon...spectrum hanger holder, around $8.00 and over 500 great reviews.

I hang all my long stuff on these so I can double rack the back and one side of closet.

I hang all my long stuff on these so I can double rack the back and one side of closet.

What a good idea. I still have a few performance dresses and it's annoying to have to give up a big hunk of space where I could double rack just for those gowns.

Rebecca, your closet is gorgeous! Love the chandelier.

Rebecca - how wide is that closet? Not sure if this thread is still active! We are trying to make an 8x4 ft closet a walk-in although I've already accepted it'll only be stuff hanging on one side.

Sorry - I just meant did you leave it 4x10? I wasn't sure if you meant that taking everything out was just shelving or if you actually expanded it. Looks larger than 4 ft wide! Beautiful closet btw!

Hi Jocelyn! It's 52" wide, so a few inches wider than 4', but it worked just fine! We were really surprised how well it turned out, despite only being able to hang on one side. It also helped that we took the opportunity to do a major clothing purge, and really enjoyed having less stuff that we actually wore! Hope that helps. It may be an old post, but I'm sure there's other people (like you) looking for advice that will stumble upon it. =)

Okay, I'm FINALLY tackling this project. I got energetic the other night and swapped the wire shelving in our long and narrow closet. Here are quick before and after shots right when I did it. You can see in this before shot that we didn't have much going on the right side...since it infringed too much on actually walking into the closet.

And here is the right after shot. You can see that I moved a mid-century dresser into the left side for drawer storage. It's a piece we had around anyway, and we can't foot the bill yet for a closet organizer, so I'm making do with what we have currently.

I'm debating keeping the high shelf on the right side...I think it will stay lighter and brighter if I remove it...so I'll see how much I actually use the storage (if at all).

I'm also looking for ideas for the right side...thinking of flip down wall hooks to be used as necessary...Ikea has some that I like here: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60152590/

FYI, I'm finding out every time I do a project like this what numbskulls the flippers were. This closet is 48" wide at the front and 43" wide at the back and 120" deep. I'm thinking of cutting the original left side shelf into pieces to make three new shelves across the back.

I apologize, my comment was regarding someone else's photos that was showing you their project

Rebecca I love your pics. I'm asking our architect to give me a really long closet and he wants to give me a 5x7 box which I don't want. I think I'd like the long walk in better so I'm going to ask for these dimensions with a pocket door to save on space since I'll have a window on one of the shorter walls. Love your California closet transformation. We ordered a John Louis closet system at our last house and loved it but it would've made better use of the space if it were not a square walk in but longer in design.

@klbjeweled, I hear you, wish I would have opted for reach ins. We are in the middle of renovations and our closet was framed out... and I realized the space is all wrong for our intentions and its too late to reconfigure (windows, certain structures get in the way of reframing). It's currently 4ft 10in x 13. An entire wall will ultimately be useless. Will have to get super creative with the space.

Rebecca - if you are still monitoring this post any chance I could see your plans from California Closets?

I try reading as much as I can but decided to ask for a personal opinion. I have a 6 feet wide/width and 12 feet area which I would like to turn into a walk in closet. is it possible I can it only be a reach in closet?

I am so super bummed I found this article! I wish we would have made our one-sided walk-in closet narrower as we ended up with a very small bedroom! We settled on 40" deep after reading this article the closet took valuable space away from the bedroom which is 10' x 11'. I would have done ANYTHING for an extra 5-6" which would have made the room 5' x 11.5" and the closet 36" deep which is plenty for a side-entry walk-in closet. We wanted to do walk in instead of reach in because of the flexibility of the bed configuration and gaining more wall space in the room. But we ended up with a small bedroom and a large closet. Don't make the same mistake we did!

@hu-736520469 if the walk in closet was one sided which is about 4 feet wide (2 feet hanging space 2 feet walking space) would you have more bedroom space

long shot but if @sjhockeyfan325 sees this, I would LOVE it if there is any way you would be willing to tape off 42" away from wall that has the Ikea built-ins on the photo above. We are in Chicago and our only option may be an even more narrow walk-in than what the OP is proposing. We have only 42" in width and are considering Ikea built-ins. We know that means we might need to shuffle sideways, but you do what you have to do for closet space in the city. I just want to make sure we at least have enough room to shuffle.

We ended up doing this in our closet (IKEA

) but we were a Few inches shy of 5 ft width. Snug walkway but works well.

I am here for this thread! We are working on an addition over our kitchen and would like a really long 16', 48" depth walk-in closet with two sliding door entrances on each side of the long wall. Seems like Rebecca's would be perfect, so maybe we need to squeeze an extra 6" out of the depth by adding some sort of molding to the bay window area. If Rebecca is still here - can you actually open the drawers? We are planning on aligning the drawers with the door openings and the remainder is hangers/shoe/cubbies.

Hi! We don't own that house any more (9y ago LOL), but yes we loved that closet and you could open the drawers just fine! It worked perfectly for us unless you just have a ton of stuff. Good luck!

So glad you posted those pictures. Very helpful. We are going to extend the closet depth to 4'6". Thanks!

watch Kelly LaVine, "Closet Coach" on YouTube. she's got great advice for designing narrow closets. Love all of her videos!

Hi Rebecca! I know this a really old post, and you don't own the home anymore. I was wondering if you recall how deep the California Closet system was? Was it a shallow/undersized one like 14-20" deep, or was it actually a proper clothing-rack depth system?

I don't, however I do remember CA Closets has standard depths and won't waiver on that, because I asked LOL. We are not very big and I didn't like that there was a few wasted inches on the back that didn't seem necessary but they said if we moved and a big guy with big suit hangers moved in, they couldn't risk their reputation not having a proper depth. Ironically, a kid got that bedroom when we moved. But it was fine, it never felt narrow to me even with the extra depth. Hope that helps.

Amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to this comment :) I really appreciate it!!!