Our daughter's room had no closet, so we added a small one in the room. There was no problem with the appraiser, the assessor or the realtor when we sold the house. We're also in Iowa. Bigger question might be does it make the bedroom too small or awkward. And is the trade-off for the kitchen worthwhile. It may well be, but I'd measure it out.

Well, what the agent means is a closet will have to be framed in with some sort of door. It could be 12 inches wide and take part of the "existing" room (at least in my state). How big is your home? How many bedrooms?

our daughter's closet was subsumed by a useful enlargement of the hall bathroom. during that construction another closet was built in her room, making a jog and a nook instead of a plain rectangle. it was fine. children's rooms can be small, and they like nooks and bumps, too.

so, thumbs up.

A room needs a built-in closet to be considered a bedroom. Your home value drops significantly if you remove a bedroom, no matter what the size of it. It would be a big risk in the long run to remove the closet.

In my jurisdiction, built in closets are *not* necessary to be considered a bedroom. That does not mean there aren’t a lot of misinformed agents out there who believe they are! But Code does not require it, appraisers do not require it, etc. However, there are of course buyers who might expect it and so something to be aware of.

My husband and I personally dislike bedroom closets (except walk ins) because they limit furniture arrangement, etc. Door swings also take up space (and I despise the more space saving bifolds or pocket doors). The only bedroom in our house with a closet is our master (which has two small walk ins). We will use PAX wardrobes - with slider doors - for others. It was far more important for us to have a functional space to serve us for the many years we will be there than to have a closet because a future realtor might believe they are mandatory. We will include the PAX when we sell if we must ;)

I am thumbs up for the stealing the closet space for the kitchen. The house should be functional for YOU for next 5, 10, 17 years. If you are always worried about future buyers you are never really making it *yours*. Look at under the bed storage for your daughter if her room is small. We have a platform bed with drawers mounted under it which are a fantastic storage solution, but I also know people who just use low profile under the bed Rubbermaid containers etc.

You first need to check and see what your local jurisdiction requires in order to consider a room a bedroom. Usually, there needs to be a closet. So removing it might mean you lose an entire bedroom (what you can claim as a bedroom) therefore dropping your home value by a lot.

If it's fine code wise, I think it's smart. Bedrooms can have other storage options. I suggest you look into it and also hire a kitchen designer. They might be able to work with the space you have to create a functional design.

How many bedrooms do you actually have now?

I would not do that. Bedrooms needs closets. Your same argument that the closet is so "dinky" as to not be needed/won't be missed, then it's also not going to make that much more of a difference in your kitchen.

Little girls and, even more so, teenage girls need closet space. Just how large/small is this small bedroom?

Draw, to scale (graph paper) a floor plan of her room showing all windows and doors and heat/ac vents. On thicker (card stock) paper, draw the size every item of furniture touching the floor and cut it out. Now check: How could you rearrange her room if you needed to build a new closet within her room?

Sometimes -- if there is room between the door hinge and wall, a door can have some storage space added to it -- think … oversized medicine cabinet behind a full length mirror:

http://pk8.info/behind-the-door-mirror/behind-the-door-mirror-full-image-for-behind-door-storage-with-mirror-over-the-door-storage-with-mirror-behind-over-door-hanging-mirror-ikea/

That and/or other changes to the room furnishings and/or wall shelving and/or corner shelving might could be done to make it possible to remove some piece of furniture taking up floor space in the room (to make room for a new closet to be built) without depriving the occupant of the room of significant storage space.

Swapping a wide low dresser with a mirror over it for a tall chest of drawers (w/full length mirror on the back of the door) could provide as much storage space and not be depriving the room's occupant of needed furnishings.

aaargh that whole thing I typed and I forgot to hit submit?!?! Gaaahhhhh!!!!!

Well let me see if I can remember what I typed. We have three bedrooms. I did have them measured and didn’t bring it with-we are on vacation out of state. I want to say 11x13?? 11x11?? The closet in question is 2x3 and the other two are 2x4, if memory serves...which I can’t guarantee...without my handy dandy paper.

Currently the kids tall dressers are in front of their windows and their nightstand are in the closets. They’re bigger now so don’t need the floor space for playing anymore—we currently have the bed along the walls, which does create issues as well, but that’s easily solved.

What I would like to do is create floor to ceiling storage in a corner/space that is hard to utilize and get rid of their dressers.

My daughter wants a small vanity area-she’s 14. Her brothers closet is bigger, so what she and I have come up with, is for the kids to switch rooms so she can have the bigger closet and we can put a vanity in the room. If she keeps the same room, she wants to turn the closet into a vanity space.

The storage issue as far as being dinky-it is dinky for a bedroom, but for a kitchen, it would create useable counter space and storage above and below. We don’t have a lot of counter space.. let me see what pictures I may have on my phone.

I did talk to the assessor, and she said the kitchen would be more important to potential buyers and all the room needs is a window and a designated place for clothing to be a bedroom. Let me find what she said exactly. We don’t plan to sell, unless we hit the lottery or something happens in our town that financially we would have to move, so selling would only be an issue when we are dead or in a nursing home. We are 44 so I am going to assume we have another well over 20 years here. The realtor said the room needs to have a closet-but closet was not defined...one of my friends growing up had a walk in closet in her room that was actually IN the room, a part of the room itself, rather than “off” the room like all of our closets are and all of the closets where I grew up.

This is the area in question, on the right hand side there.

And a picture of her room to see where the closet is located. (Old picture, bed and dressers moved around)

Agree with Rai Kai. I'm a Realtor. I have researched this closet issue for my state with the appraisers and the county/cities I service and there is no requirement to have a "built in" closet. There are many Realtors and buyers that have the erroneous impression that the closet has to be built in. It is one of those buyer myths that persist. Removing a closet is NOT removing a bedroom. A bedroom may have min dimensions required and it has to have an egress window. But clothes storage does not need to be built in. A pax type unit at Ikea works or many other solutions. Do the research for your city/town/municipality and your state. It is more efficient with smaller rooms to plan alternate storage anyway.

Bring in a KD so you can utilize your kitchen well. IMO small spaces need a KD more than large spaces. They both need KD's but it is more of a challenge to design a well functioning kitchen in a small space. JMO. Yes, use that space in the kitchen rather than as a closet.

Why don't you replace the bedroom furniture with a wall of built in units which would then serve as both closet and dresser.

Right now you aren't maximizing the storage space as you could do floor to ceiling where the shelf is and customize how you want in terms of splitting between hanging and folding storage.

You could actually do something that wraps around one wall because the corner could serve as a vanity/desk area because leaving it open for feet is more functional than drawers there anyway and you could continue storage under the window. If the closet door is gone you would also free up wall space for additional storage units. IKEA has some pretty low cost ways to customize wall units for storage.

Bellburgmaggie, we have three bedrooms.

yes, exactly, that’s what I want to do, something along the walls. If the closet wasn’t there, I could put her bed in the middle of that wall (sticking out into the room rather than against the wall) and floor to ceiling storage around it on the whole wall, including a vanity if needed, and still feel like she (or he if they switch) had room to breathe and walk in there. Or I could do the same on the opposite wall. I feel like there would be more options.

Where would I look to find out what the rules/specifications are for our state/area? The assessor said it would be fine, just needs an egress and can’t be tandem or pass thru. Realtor said has to have a closet, but that was all he said.

Danita is correct - urban myth that to call it a bedroom it must have a closet. It must meet egress requirements in the event of a fire -but closets are not required. I live in a community founded in the early part of the 19th century - so lots of houses have no closets and retrofitted bathrooms because in that era there were only outhouses.

One of the things I learned from my forced remodel (flood from plumbing) is that a closet designer is a MUST. You can pack a lot into a well planned closet. My old master closet was the bain of my existence - so I hired The Closet Factory and they turned that sows ear into a silk purse. People go WOW when they see it and I laugh because it was awful until someone who knew what they were doing got a hold of it. I am telling you best money spent is on a good designer/organizer. In my old house I had closets on either side of the bed and it worked fine. One other thing I learned to cut down on the expense is to paint the back wall with an enamel paint the same color that you are using for your closet - that way you do not have to pay for boards on the back and the back wall looks like it is part of the closet unit. Saves about 30% of the cost.

A certified appraiser can answer the question about whether your bedroom must have a closet.

As others have said, a closet is somewhat undefined.

I grew up in an old house that also had tiny closets so my parents framed out the walls to put wardrobes running along the walls where the tiny closets had been - not that I am suggesting that as a solution but only pointing out that if you do built in closet/wall units no one is likely to question whether they are closets.

My little closet niche came in handy for pot smoking in high school as I could disappear into the niche and the smoke was more or less contained :-)

Appraiser, not assessor, ugh, thank you for that—-I spoke with the *appraiser* and she said an egress window is the only requirement.

I did google it and the Iowa realtor page said Iowa does not have regulations on that, rather they let each city/county decide. I tried to google for my town in Iowa and got zilch so I can assume the appraiser is correct since that should be part of her job haha, but I will ask her where I could locate that information to be sure.

Check building code requirements. The appraiser was the best resource and you have your answer :)

I will contact her again for specifics and hopefully the husband will be on board with it after showing him it’s the better way to go. (Now granted it’s taken 7 months now to just get drywall up in the new pantry area so we may in fact be ready for a nursing home by the time we get close to doing this...)

Florida requires that a bedroom have a closet. While "closet" is undefined, that room looks awfully small to add built-ins or an armoire.

“Bedroom” means a room that can be used for sleeping and that:a. For site-built dwellings, has a minimum of 70 square feet of conditioned space;

b. For manufactured homes, is constructed according to the standards of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and has a minimum of 50 square feet of floor area;

c. Is located along an exterior wall;

d. Has a closet and a door or an entrance where a door could be reasonably installed; and

e. Has an emergency means of escape and rescue opening to the outside in accordance with the Florida Building Code.

2. A room may not be considered a bedroom if it is used to access another room except a bathroom or closet.

3. “Bedroom” does not include a hallway, bathroom, kitchen, living room, family room, dining room, den, breakfast nook, pantry, laundry room, sunroom, recreation room, media/video room, or exercise room.

Yes, but the closet doesn't have to be built in.

I remember your kitchen layout and think you could really benefit from getting that space back. I'd draw out a 2D layout for your daughter's room to make sure you can make it work with a wardrobe.

My house originally had a small 3x3 closet in each bedroom. I did a major bathroom remodel and also reframed the closets to be wider but only 24" deep. I think it's an improvement overall. However I've found that the shallow framed closet makes it hard to use the upper shelves that are above the door frame. Like if I have a big rubbermaid container, it could fit on the shelf, but there's not enough clearance to get it up there because of the header. In hindsight, I should have put some more thought into it and might have decided to do something more like a built-in wardrobe. My point is that you could design a smarter closet that takes up less space.

The room is small, but I think if you took everything out but the bed, and then put floor to ceiling storage even on one wall, she’s actually have more room in there. She has a lot of dead space now bc there’s like two feet from the end of the bed to the wall, and a foot over in front of the window is the tall dresser-so it’s a fight bc the only thing that space is good for is piling things up to get them out of the way. But I can’t put the dresser there bc it’s not enough room. Even just in hat space if she had floor to ceiling storage she’s have the space if the tall dresser x 2-but in a useable way, this opening up other space.

Mid we put the storage on the wall the closet is on now, and out the bed there as well but out into the room, rather than the whole side of the bed against the wall...she would have a wall roughly 13x8 of storage, minus the area of the headboard. That’s pretty good. Could extend it around the wall and end at the cold air return to add in a vanity/homework area.

When we get back this weekend I’ll measure it all out again and use the graph paper to mark it out with window and everything.