There are no closets in our house, with the exception of the one we built in the downstairs bedroom. This was just the nature of homes back when ours was built. People were usually taxed on the number of rooms they had in their home, and a closet was actually considered a room. That’s why so many older homes didn’t have closets, and the occupants stored their items in hutches and wardrobes. These days, we keep lots of stuff around—more than we should.

We needed clothing storage in the upstairs room that is now the Master bedroom. The only place to add the closet was in the adjoining bedroom and use the pass-through as a portion of the closet. In doing so, we made the other upstairs bedroom smaller by about 27.5 square feet—which is now closet space for the Master bedroom.