It seems to me the better question might be, "should you bother with a walk in closet or would it be better to stick with a reach in closet?" Clothing hanging on a rod typically sticks out 24 inches from the wall. Then, if any clothing is beyond arm's reach from the door, you need an aisleway. In my opinion, an aisleway less than 32" wide is claustrophobic. And, if you're thinking of hanging clothing on two perpendicular walls, keep in mind that even tho the poles cross in the corner, you can only hang clothing in the corner on ONE of the two poles. And whatever is hung in the corner is going to be hidden by clothing on the other pole. Garments hung in corners wind up seldom being chosen for wear because basically they're hidden away! DH and I shared a 5x7 closet in our old house and when I was packing up to move to the new house, I found some dresses that I had not worn in over ten years tucked back into the corner! I had forgotten I still had them. So the corners of closets are not exactly prime space. If you have a 5'7" reach-in closet (interior dimensions 5'7" x 2'), with a wide doorway you get 5'7" of useable hanging space. If you have a 4 x 5'7" walk in closet, you can hang stuff along one 5'7" wall and along 2feet of one of the 4' walls. So it seems like you have 7'7" of hanging space. But 2 feet of that is in a "hidden corner" so all you really gain by doubling the square footage taken up by the closet is 2 feet of "hidden corner" space. The other option with a 4'x5'7" closet might be to hang garments along the two 4' walls and have the door in the center of one of the long walls. With clothing on both 4ft walls, you get 8 feet of hanging space but only have an aisle down the middle that is 19 inches wide. From the doorway, you can reach into a closet maybe 3 feet. That means you have about 6 feet of useful space; again anything hung further in will likely seldom be worn because you'd have to squeeze into the claustrophobic aisle to find it. Personally, I think that if the space available for a closet is smaller than 5x7, you're better off going with a reach-in and putting the extra sq footage into the bedroom. As for how much closet space guests need, most of us don't travel with THAT many clothes anymore. One foot of clear rod is more than enough. In fact, the most useful "closet" space I've ever stayed in was a guest room where the hostess had put 3 nice heavy duty hooks along one wall spaced a little over 2 feet apart and then put pretty decorated clothes hangers on them. On showing me to the room, my hostess told me, "the hangers aren't art-work, feel free to use them and if you need more hangers let me know. It was great b/c I didn't have to worry that I'd accidentally leave something behind in the guest room closet that, like most, was filled with the family's overflow. What most of us REALLY in a guest room need is a clear surface to set our suitcase on and sometimes an empty drawer...

The reason one window in the bedroom is operable is in order to meet the code requirement for an emergency escape and rescue opening in all bedrooms. I have many times advised homeowners on the GW to not allow a builder to use the cryptic convention of using 60 to mean 72" or 6'-0" on the elevation drawings. (By the way, in my experience, 60 means 72" as silly as that seems) All window sizes should be dimensioned in rough opening feet - inches for the benefit of the framer. All windows should be specified separately for the benefit of the supplier in a Window Schedule that shows the manufacturer, model, rough opening, glass type, color, mullions, hardware, etc. Otherwise you are asking for mistakes. You might ask the GC where the horizontal mullion/sash rail is in the middle of the windows that were ordered for the front of the house. Something stinks; I think someone is making you take responsibility for their unprofessional mistakes. I not only provide clients with window schedules, I insist on reviewing the order before it is submitted which is a tedious and thankless job since all manufacturers use different cryptic conventions for their order sheets. I have never checked an order where there wasn't a mistake and some of them would have been very expensive to correct after delivery. Sometimes a window manufacturer will make a mistake with a correct order but that can be corrected at no cost to the owner. The issue here is documentation. If the correct windows were documented all errors should be corrected at no cost to the owner with no debate. I should also add that in the past 40 years I've known only one GC to order through a lumberyard/box store instead of a wholesale window supplier and the resulting mistakes in that order were the worst I've ever seen.

Mine is about 9x15. It's not only a walk in closet, but also my sewing room (counter with the window) and acts as a nursey currently as well. It's still in progress, with doors to be added to the boxes on the left side, and lighting to go in the glass door cabinets. All glass door cabinets on the right have bars (shirts, pants and skirts). To the back side it has a long storage area for ballgowns, fur coats, and other less used items. (I say that like I have 42 fur coats LOL I don't). Then there is a shelf that run around the entire room aside from the window wall which will house less used items. There are still a few trim pieces to install and rods, but to give an idea, here's a few pics. THe lighting is just for show during the inspection. It will be replaced with a gorgeous antique fixture. The walls are being done in venetian plaster. (Should be done this week). We stole the space for this closet from our master bedroom. It had been a sitting area. When we remodeled we took space for the closet (just built a simple wall) and added to the master bath by stealing the space in two linen closets we had filled with junk we didn't need. The room was huge before (658 sq ft) and is still good size, but the closet makes it SOOO much more functional. We also removed a silly soaker tub that was IN the bedroom and used that plumbing to add a stackable washer and dryer on the same floor (the other one is four levels down in the five level townhouse). Removing the tub gave us the sitting area we took for this closet. Obviously we could use a few knobs and pulls LOL but we'll get there! In fact, thank you for this question....because it reminds me to order them today!

Hello everyone - I am an interior designer. I dislike long narrow “walk in” closets. Even if you have a designer create a beautiful, one sided narrow walk in - 2-3 feet of pathway is not enough. This will create a space that is not useable by people of all abilities, and wastes an entire wall. I believe a true walk in needs to have a 4-5 foot pathway. If you don’t have that much space, create a beautiful reach in closet. The options for reach in closets are endless. Keep in mind that a beautiful, well planned reach in closet will be an bigger selling point than a narrow walk in. I am very opinionated about good design, and my passion is promoting, creating and educating my clients about Universal Design.