Closets for Christmas!

Written by Jaqui Lividini

The time has come to talk about closets. We finally had closets installed last week after waiting for what seemed like an eternity. After much research and deliberation, we went with ELFA from The Container Store. Because our house was built in 1901, there were no closets in the original design. When they were added, they were all awkward sizes with roof angles, slanted walls, beams, etc. We chose ELFA because their designs are the most flexible and allowed us to get the maximum storage space possible.

We “ELFA’d” four closets in total: the downstairs master bedroom, the hall coat closet, the upstairs master bedroom, and Calliope’s bedroom. I designed the closets with Courtney Lomonaco from the Container Store. Truthfully I would have been lost without Courtney. My unique closets didn’t intimidate her at all. She whipped together all 4 closets in no time at all—I was impressed!

Luckily for me The Container Store has an annual 30% off ELFA sale in January, so even though we designed the closets during the summer, I decided to wait till I could take advantage of the huge savings.  This year they actually started the sale early, so when I received the email on Christmas Eve that the sale had begun, I hurried over to the Container Store at 6pm to place my order—on the night before Christmas! We scheduled the closets to be installed the first week of January, which I was beyond excited about. It was the best Christmas gift ever!

When they arrived in early January, one very diligent workman installed all four closets in just one day and their addition was nothing short of transformative. Of course, once the closets were in, I realized that there were a number of things I hadn’t anticipated that would need to be changed.  For instance, why didn’t I put a hanging rod in the upstairs closet? The great thing about ELFA is that you can move things around—flexibility is their greatest attribute—and this proved key for us.  We were able to get all of our boxes unpacked and the closets organized in no time, AND finally breathe a sigh of relief because the last big project in the house was complete!