BUT, I know from shopping experiences that I am completely and totally incapable of pulling a shirt out of a stack without destroying the whole stack. I solved this for my DD by rolling shirts and then standing them on end, so they're always visible and nothing's on the bottom. I know I get dust on the shoulders of the seldom-worn stuff in my closet--but I also leave the closet door open a lot, which makes it a little bit worse. I think I'd go for the combination of open cubbyholes and drawers: -underwear, socks, small stuff in drawers; -open cubbies for the frequently worn T-shirts & sweaters; -drawers for seldom-worn specialty stuff that I don't need to see to remember to wear--stuff like the three knock-around T-shirts I've got, or the two sweatshirts I own for chilly days, or the one pair of sweatpants. -Maybe even specialty stuff like evening gowns (I own 1 of them, but wear it to weddings) can go in a drawer, if I move the other stuff out to make room. Hmmm..this is an interesting idea... It helps a lot, w/ dust, not to own too many things! And I agree that cubbies would be a good way to keep stuff from sliding or falling over. You'd still have the "bottom of the stack" problem, though you could roll shirts, etc. Or, I find that most of the stuff ont he hangers is stuff I seldom wear--so if it could go in a drawer, I could hang all my T-shirts, probably....Hmmm..

I finally understood what you mean. No, Elfa's top-rail-supported systems are wire or wire mesh with wooden shelves that serve as the wire drawer's support and as a dust cover. There are no all-wood drawer ones. I think they're just too heavy. You can look at the link below for wooden drawers. In some of their other photos it looks as if they MIGHT be rail hung, but I just doubt it. I guess the same principle as not hanging the kitchen cabinets all off a top rail. Good luck with your search, though. Here is a link that might be useful: wood drawers

73 shirts??!!! WOW! I'm pretty sure my husband and I don't have 73 of anything combined! ;) I do try to purge a minimum of twice a year, and I do rotate hanging clothes into the black hole (well put!) out-of-season. I do like the shelf idea that ShadesOfIdaho posted to my flickr page, though. Maybe I can do shelves on the bottom and hanging clothes over the top? I'm not hanging any ball gowns that require full-height hanging space. It's certainly not the worst house-related problem to have, that's for sure. But it is just odd that they built them this way in every single bedroom. Black Hole or not, the relatively generous closets are the main reason we are still able to live in our small house (no attic, no basement, no garage).

For what it's worth, I mentioned this thread to my DH and he noted that he LOVES our Elfa wire shelving and said that he would NEVER want to go back to wood shelving as we had in the pantry closet of our last house. He also mentioned that--at least when we bought our components--he thinks one could mix and match solid shelves and wire shelves, so one could have some solid shelves for small items or things that tip over more easily if one really wanted them. Just a thought. BTW, Elfa systems are more expensive than other wire shelving systems, I think. But the Container Store usually has a big sale on them at least once per year that makes them much more reasonable.