Closets are designed to provide extra storage space in a home while adding to the overall dcor. While closet designers do their utmost to try and accommodate all storage needs into a mass-produced closet design, the truth is that any closet you buy could a few customizations to fulfill your storage needs.

Laminate sheets, paper, bristol board, wood, and many other items are difficult to store because of their size and shape. You want to be able to see the types and colors you have, but they need to be protected so they don’t get bent or ruined. Divided cupboards in custom closes are the perfect solution. Vertical is best for larger sheets. A sliding door works to hide these cabinets when you aren’t using them.

Horizontal shelving is ideal for scrapbooking papers, stickers, and other small items. If you are concerned about having them fall out, consider having them installed at a thirty-degree angle and use shallow wire baskets. These are also great for yarns and other oddly shaped items.

Spruce up the bottom of your closet with other closet organizer units such as stackable floor shelves or portable drawers. These units are just some of many floor units that can turn the bottom of your closet from an area of piled-up mess into an easy-to-find organized space.

Specialty drawers such as pull out workspaces are a convenient necessity for custom closets. They are great for holding your supplies while you’re working, or have them on the end of a countertop to make it easy to work with larger projects.

You can do away with the old single bar that spans the width of your closet and get a multi-bar unit that caters to long clothes on one side and multi-levels of short clothes on the other. Boring shelves can be replaced with sliding shelves to allow you to stack clothing to the depth of your closet and still be accessible.

For ribbon and rolls of paper, custom closets can have an area with lengths of dowel to feed them onto. If you keep the paper towards the work surface, you can inlay a measuring stick and use it to measure out what you need or use the edge of the countertop to tear it off. Have holes routed in the top to sink cups into. You can keep pencils, scissors, paperclips, and other small items in them while keeping them out of the way.

For wreaths and other hangable items, use pegboard as a backboard for the unit. It doesn’t matter if you have a huge space for a closet in Chicago or a small space in a New York apartment, the only rule with these types of storage spaces is to design them specifically for your items and habits.