Oh, I Design is honored to collaborate with California Closets and Garnet Hill for this post. Oh, I Design only partners with brands that we truly love and recommend, and we value the relationships we build.
I love our home; it’s the perfect size for our family. But of course there are little things here and there I’d love to adjust – I am an interior designer after all! 😉 One of the areas that I’m most eager to tweak a bit are our closets. Everyone knows storage is essential, especially once you have kiddos! We have a few closets but they aren’t laid out in an efficient way and none of them had any sort of shelving or organization system when we moved in, making it a bit difficult. Though, on the flip side, I get to add the closet systems that work best for what we are storing.
After living in our home for almost two years now, it was easy for me to identify the main storage pain point: our linen and medicine cabinet area. We were at a loss with where to put our towels, sheets, toiletries, and more, since we didn’t have a dedicated spot, and I didn’t like the idea of cramming them into our guest closet. A central solution was needed and it was needed fast (I was losing my mind…not to be dramatic!).
We had an empty space on the landing of our 2nd floor that would work well for some sort of custom built linen closet and when I saw Anne Sage’s beautiful office makeover, it inspired me to move forward with California Closets for our linen closet and a TV console (which I’ll write about in a future post).
Design
For the design of the closet, I worked closely with Brianne Lowe (Bri) at California Closets and really appreciated all of her knowledge and input. I highly recommend reaching out to her if you’re in the area (Boston and suburbs)! She helped me finalize all of the design details and recommended things such as adding the two drawers at the bottom of the linen closet as the two large doors felt overwhelming.
They have many cabinetry finish options; we ended up going with the color Natural from their Albero collection. I loved it from the very beginning and it’s the same finish that Anne used in her office, which was my initial inspiration. My only hesitation with the natural color was that the closet was going to be on our warmer wood flooring and I wasn’t sure if it would complement one another. But Bri had samples on hand and reassured me it would look nice (every designer needs another designer to help with decisions!). I also splurged on a gorgeous vintage rug from New England Loom which helps to break up the hard surfaces!
Hardware
For the hardware, California Closets has a few nice hardware pieces, but we didn’t find something that matched the overall look we wanted to achieve. You are able to supply your own hardware so we went with the Sommerville cabinet pulls in matte black from Rejuvenation. I’m totally obsessed to say the least!
Organization
On the right side of the linen closet, we have crib sheets, twin sheets, queen sheets, and towels neatly stored. I’m still trying to figure out the left side; right now we have some “memory boxes” and these cute enamel first aid boxes where we keep our medicine and first aid items. I will do a few instagram stories to show you what we end up doing.
We can’t get enough of our linen sheets from Garnet Hill; honestly, I don’t think I can sleep on anything but linen now. I’m also really loving our new Egyptian white towels. A tip I learned from Lark Hotels was to stock up on dark-colored washcloths so you can take your makeup off with no regrets. We chose the steel color from Garnet Hill and I’m sold on this whole dark-colored washcloth idea. 😉
We keep all of our washcloths and hand towels folded up in these baskets from The Container Store. We also keep a couple of extra pillows in our linen closet as we have a pull-out sofa downstairs to accommodate guests; it’s so nice to have a home for them now.
To say I’m happy with the outcome of our linen closet in an understatement. It’s designed so well, super tidy, gorgeous, and fits into our home perfectly. This organized mama is one happy camper.
You can find more posts featuring our #oidhome in Boston here!
