Charles Helmholdt, Charles, Diane & Co., created a custom walk-in closet system that makes an “architectural statement” with cantilevered custom lighting, a contemporary cornice, glass doors and insets and more. The project won Honorable Mention in the Closet: Wood Under 18 linear feet category in the 2023 Top Shelf Design Awards. Winners were announced on April 13 at a reception sponsored by CCF Industries during the Closets Conference & Expo, held in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Here's how Helmholdt describes the project:

Project Title: Bedroom Closet

Project Details: My wife and I have been professional interior and graphic designers for the last 30 years. During 2022 we designed our own bedroom remodel, including a closet system that replaced our built-in closets.

Projection Construction: We designed the closet system to be part of the bedroom space instead of being a walk-in closet. We decided to make the closet an architectural statement by featuring it in the bedroom space. We articulated the depths of the cabinets and added a contemporary cornice on the top. The entire back bedroom wall has a metallic wall covering that is seen on the inside of all the cabinet openings, reminiscent of luxury travel trunks. We also added cantilevered custom lighting above to light the glass doors and LED lights inside the cabinets to light the clothes. A natural honey-toned wood cypress ceiling floats just above the closets, contrasting the grey tone stain of the cabinets. We also used light-tinted acrylic for the glass door inserts and applied an etched frosted persimmon film to diffuse what was stored on the shelves. The same etched film was applied to the one-way glass of the barn door leading to the bathroom. We designed the bedroom closet system to float between the two walls allowing a sliding barn door to tuck into a gap when the door is opened and to disengage from the stone wall on the opposite side of the closets.  

Materials Used: After researching several closet vendors online and visiting local showrooms, we specified "Closet Concepts" of Byron Center, Michigan which offered a closet system that met all of our design objectives.  

Equipment Used: We are "Old School" designers and hand drew our bedroom remodeling plans. Our closet contractor re-drew our closet plan on their own proprietary software used for ordering and installing the project.