heck run-in sentence
My brother-in-law is obsessed with having more linear feet than anybody.
We’re talking closets here.
Jan Riese, a designer for the New York Closet Co., is unreeling her tape measure like a lion tamer’s whip as she works her way from his front hall to the bedroom, linear foot by linear foot. She is on the prowl for more space. Every linear foot counts, especially since his new apartment has more floor space than his old one, but less closet space. I am trailing behind.
The next thing I know, I am on the phone to the California Closet Co., and its designer Steve Pucillo is on his way to my Manhattan apartment on his collapsible bicycle. I wonder: Is there a difference between a New York closet and a California closet? And did Freud have a theory about closet envy?
It is immediately apparent that Pucillo is more of an efficiency expert than the technocrats at the Pentagon. Going by what I had told him on the phone about heights and widths, he has been visualizing space-saving designs on his bike ride across town. On crossing the threshold, he is all but carried away by his enthusiasm for the clutter-busting possibilities he envisions.
Fortunately he has a polite, poker-faced way of dealing with households like mine that are not populated by efficiency experts.
“You have a shoe problem here,” he says with the finality someone else might save for Imelda Marcos or Marla Trump. But shoes are not the only thing he sees on the floor of the bedroom closet.
“Do you use that travel bag every day?” he asks.
No, my wife and I say.
“I know what to do,” he says triumphantly. “I can take that space and really, really put it to work, so every inch is used. But we’re going to force you to keep that closet very, very neat.”
Right. He heads for the hall closet.
“Ah, the vision thing,” he declares, talking like George Bush and no doubt thinking of Fibber McGee and Molly. Ours is a jumble of topcoats and tablecloths, suitcases and skis and wine bottles. Pucillo can see that my wife and I have no idea what purpose that closet should serve.
“Look at this wasted space down here,” he says. “And it’s so deep it can’t be anything but messy.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. He starts sketching his concept for the bedroom closet on pink graph paper. He wants to put up two more horizontal rods, one above the other, to hang suits and dresses on, doubling the storage space. Great, I think: more linear feet.
While drawing, Pucillo talks about the history of closets and his own history as an efficiency expert. “The wardrobe of America has changed” as women have joined the labor force in the last 25 years, he says, “and working people have demanded that closets be organized. Her wardrobe is as important as his wardrobe.”
In new houses that are large enough, it is not all that rare for an architect to design a closet of 400 square feet, the equivalent of a 20-by-20-foot room. That’s bigger than most city kitchens and big enough for a freestanding island with drawers.
But those of us who are not drowning in blueprints are forced to squeeze more closet space into their existing homes and apartments. That need has spawned a big business in closet-organization systeWholesale sales of wire, plastic and cardboard storage items climbed 11 percent to $1.33 billion in 1994, according to HFN, a trade publication.
Pucillo, 54, went to work for the California Closet Co. two years ago after a career as a business-side executive for magazines like Mechanix Illustrated, Field and Stream, Metropolitan Home and Bon Appetit.
He also ran his own upholstery and paperhanging business, but since joining California Closet, he has turned his East Side apartment into a laboratory of ideas. He has built storage units to hide boat pontoons under his bed and cross-country skis behind his living-room draperies.
What he wants to install in our 8-foot-wide bedroom closet is a superstructure made of composition board covered with a smooth white washable surface that has the look and texture of kitchen cabinets. This is what will double our closet space, for it will run from near the top of the closet to about 10 inches from the floor.
Then he wonders if we don’t need some shelves, which raises the question: How deep? Fourteen inches is, Pucillo says, the California Closet Co.’s depth of choice.
He goes back to the hall closet. “You folks wear a lot of long coats,” he says. “A lot of people are into shorter coats, and I can do double-hanging. But I’ll be honest: Other than a little reorganizing, I can’t make this closet that much better for you.” My heart sinks. I had been hoping for more linear feet.
My brother-in-law is doing better with Riese of New York Closet, even though her measurements indicate that the front-hall closet in his new apartment is smaller than the one in his old apartment.
My sister-in-law has an idea: They could store their suitcases in a huge closet in a back bedroom. “Could you figure some way for us to keep them neatly?” she asks, suggesting a deep shelf at the top of the closet. “Keep them from tumbling out in a jumble?”
“Upper shelves are harder to keep neat,” Riese says.
They move on to a space where my sister-in-law wants to install filing cabinets. “Go with letter-size folders,” Riese suggests.
“Wonderful,” my sister-in-law says, without a trace of sarcasm, even though this means they will have to scrap all their legal-size folders.
My brother-in-law has one thing, and only one thing, on his mind. “Does this increase the linear feet?” he asks.
Moving on to the wide but relatively shallow closet in the bedroom, Riese says: “This is easy. Difficult closets are when there are a lot of little niches and angled walls, not straightforward ones.”
Riese used to be the notator for the Paul Taylor Dance Company. “Very similar work,” she says, ballpoint pen out of her mouth. “Drawing pictures and such.” Her husband, who started New York Closet, was a navigator in the Navy.
She draws her plans, which call for shelves and shoe racks made of white metal, which has a medium-tech look that reminds me of the industrial shelving that was popular, briefly, as furniture about 15 years ago.
My brother-in-law says that this kind of shelving is less expensive than the other materials Riese offers — melamine or wood veneers. Thus my brother-in-law can afford more linear feet. I am resigned to the idea that he is going to win this one.
And he does. Riese says he ended up with 60 linear feet of rod space, exactly the same as in his old apartment. Our total is only in the 20-linear-foot range. But we are pleased anyway. We are doubling our storage space.
But no matter how I arrange and rearrange our closets, I cannot make our clothes look as neat as the those in the “after” photo in California Closet’s brochure. Only after Himpel left did I come up with the simplest solution of all: Throw some stuff away.
