If you ask a realtor or a home builder how big a closet is, you will likely get answers like "huge", or "it’s a walk in", or you might get a number like "6 feet". While all of these are of interest, the width is only a small part of the right answer.

First, let’s talk about the dimension you seldom have any control over unless you are designing for new construction or a massive renovation. Unless you make a firm point of it, you’ll end up with "standard depth" which if at most 24 inches and often a bit less. Any man, wider than a pencil will have jackets that hangs wider than 24 inches and nearly all outerwear coats need more space too. The farmhouse spec’d 28 inch closets and when it was all said and done, they ended up at 27. Had they built "standard", I’d be trying to turn all my cloths sideways to fit.

Next, if you’re house has high ceilings, odds are good, the closets don’t take good advantage of it. If you move the hanger rod a bit higher, you can easily get a second run, half way down, for shirts. This does not really work if you have less than a full 8 foot ceiling. You can manage the two rod trick but shirts for anyone over about 5 foot tall will drag on bottom on the shoes at the bottom of the closet. Of course, there is a trade off. You need to be tall enough to reach the top rod. Do a little experimenting to find a happy medium.

Speaking of shoes, if you do get deeper closest than 24 inches, you cna also store shoes two pair deep without fancy shoe racks. Most men don’t have enough shoes to justify anything more than good stretchers for their shoes so that little extra depth is a bonus here too.