Wardrobe witterings
Here’s a midly interesting (interesting may be going too far) piece of information about me, my favourite interior designers live and work in Utah. If you’re from America, perhaps that doesn’t seem too odd, but for an Essex girl who now lives in Suffolk and grew up knowing precisely one thing about Utah, “hey isn’t that where all the Mormans live?”, it is a bit of an oddity to me. In fact, I still know next to nothing about Utah - I googled where it was on the map just to be informed, I nodded sagely at the map obviously but i’m not sure it’s improved my knowledge that much.
“So Emma, you dippy tart, how on earth did you discover the amazing design scene in Utah then?”
Bit rude inner monologue, but I’ll tell you. It started during the pandemic, I’d been listening to The Great Indoors, the fab podcast by Kate Watson-Smyth and Sophie Robinson and had absolutely rinsed through its back catalogue like nobody’s business so I was hungry for more. My entire family was at home and I, like so many people, was fed up of the same four walls and felt like I needed to step up my interiors game, Spotify recommended something called Dear Alice so I thought I’d give it a go as I was in the front garden trimming my bush. Get your minds out of the gutter, you absolute swine.
Well let me tell you, I was absolutely hooked, everything they had to say resonated round my brain and before you knew it I'd signed up for an interior design diploma and here we are. There’s also Studio McGee, who a few more of you might be more familiar with due to their Netflix series Dream Home Makeover, after watching an episode I looked them up on Instagram - lo and behold they’re based in Utah as well. Must be something in the water down there.
Savvy readers may be wondering what on earth the title of this blog post has to do with interior designers in Utah and the link is admittedly tenuous, but it is through these wonderful designers that I discovered…the closet. Whilst I had previously thought that closet was just American for what we call a wardrobe, I discovered that what these designers are creating is something quite magical. Let me show you.
I think when I was a wee girl and somebody handed me a sheet of paper and said, ‘go to town kiddo, show me your dream house!’, having an entire room full of gorgeous clothes all beautifully displayed would have been a feature. Next to the slide replacing the staircase and the room made of chocolate. I dunno about you but upon discovering that this is legitimately a thing, suddenly shoving my clothes into the little built-in cupboard that I share with my other half suddenly seemed a wee bit inadequate.
It put me in mind of the film Mr & Mrs Smith, remember the scene when Angelina gets home from a hit just before Brad does and she has to hide in their palatial dressing room in that saucy leather get up so he won’t guess what she’s been up to?
You know, THIS saucy leather get up?
Their shared clothes storage space was so amazing, I remember shaking my head and thinking people don’t actually live like that, how cool would that be! And now I discover that they apparently do!
Alice Lane have several tips about creating one for yourself, such as turning a spare bedroom into a closet - which is great advice, if you’re in the enviable position of having too many bedrooms. However, if like me, you live in a more modest abode then their top tip is to make the absolute most out of the space that you have available to you. In the pursuit of beautiful design, your old rickety flatpack Ikea wardrobe is just not going to cut the mustard here I’m afraid.
You don’t actually need absolutely masses of space (although, that is obviously lovely if you have it), unless your bedroom really doesn’t have any wiggle room at all, it could be possible to sneak something in behind your bed. It’s a creative use of space that I absolutely love.
Image courtesy of Pinterest
If you have alcoves in your bedroom, these are golden opportunities for some bespoke joinery. I would absolutely urge you to consider a tailored solution here, it will help you to maximise every inch of space in a way that a flat pack solution just can’t.
Photo courtesy of fifimcgee.co.uk
I think to sum up my ramblings here I will say that the top takeaway here is that everywhere in our homes should be working hard and doing the most that it can, including where we keep our clothes. If what you’ve got now isn’t exactly Instaworthy, it might be time for an upgrade. Think about how you can maximise the space that you’ve got, if you’d like any help with that I’d love to hear from you, creative space planning is one of my favourite things!