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The classic D.C. row house is long, narrow, and beautiful. But let’s be honest: it wasn’t built for the modern homeowner. These houses were designed in the 1800s or early 1900s, long before anyone owned 30 pairs of shoes, a Peloton, or a Costco membership.
The result? You constantly feel like you are bursting at the seams. You can’t just build an addition because of historic preservation rules (and let’s face it, the cost). But you don’t have to move to the suburbs to find space. You just have to change how you look at the room you already have.
For homeowners in Washington DC, the secret isn’t building out. It’s building up.
Walk into your bedroom and look up. Chances are, you have high ceilings, maybe 9, 10, or even 12 feet high. Now look at your dresser or your standalone wardrobe. It probably stops around 6 feet. That gap between the top of your furniture and the ceiling? That is prime real estate.
In a narrow row house, floor space is invaluable. Every square foot you cover with a piece of furniture is a square foot you can’t walk on. By relying on standard furniture that doesn’t reach the ceiling, you are wasting huge amounts of storage volume.
The solution is to stop thinking in terms of floor space and start thinking in terms of vertical volume. Custom storage systems are designed to go floor-to-ceiling, allowing you to use that high-up space for the things you don’t need every day, like winter coats in July or that suitcase you only use twice a year.
The biggest shock for new residents in historic D.C. homes is the lack of closet space. When many of these homes were built, closets were considered a luxury. People used furniture (armoires) instead. If your home does have a closet, it was likely squeezed into a corner during a renovation 40 years ago. These reach-in closets are often awkward, built too deep, too dark, and hard to organize.
If you are struggling with a tiny reach-in, check out our guide on how to organize a small closet for some quick wins. But if you want a permanent fix, you might need to rethink the room entirely.
If your room lacks a built-in closet, don’t try to frame one out with drywall. It eats up too much floor space and makes the room feel smaller. The better option is a custom wardrobe.
Think of these as furniture that acts like a closet. We install them directly against the wall, cutting them around your baseboards and crown molding so they fit your aesthetic. Because they are custom, we can make them exactly as deep as they need to be with no wasted inches.
You can configure the inside with double-hanging rods (to double your shirt storage), drawers, and shelves. You get the storage of a walk-in closet without destroying the character of your bedroom.
For more inspiration on how to make this work, take a look at these wardrobe ideas for small bedrooms.
An English basement is a partially-underground level that many D.C. homeowners rely on. Depending on your use case, maybe it’s an Airbnb rental, maybe it’s an in-law suite, or maybe it’s just the family TV room.
The challenge here is that this space often has to be multifunctional. It needs to be a living room by day and a bedroom by night. It might even need to be a home office, too. If you put a regular queen-sized bed down there, it eats up the entire room. It sits there, taking up 35 square feet, doing absolutely nothing for 16 hours a day.
If you’re looking to avoid wasting space with a standard guest bed, this is where wallbeds (also known as Murphy beds) can be perfect for you. Modern wallbeds use smooth hydraulic pistons that let you open and close the bed with one hand. When it’s closed, it looks like a beautiful cabinet or bookshelf.
This allows you to double the utility of your basement. You can have a fully functional home office or yoga studio during the day, and a comfortable guest room at night. If you really want to maximize utility, you can even combine this with closet office ideas to create a workspace that disappears when you’re done for the day. For families needing home storage systems in Washington DC, this kind of flexibility is essential.
Does your front door open directly into your living room? You are not alone. Most row houses lack a formal foyer. This means when you walk in from a rainy D.C. afternoon, you have nowhere to put your wet umbrella, your muddy shoes, or your heavy coat. The “drop zone” ends up being your sofa or the dining room table.
You can create a designated entry zone with a custom mudroom setup. Even if you don’t have a dedicated room, we can install a locker-style unit near the door. These units give everyone in the family a specific hook for their bag and a cubby for their shoes. It keeps the street grit off your floors and visually separates the “entry” from the “living” space.
It’s a small change that makes the whole house feel cleaner. Review these mudroom ideas to see how even a small space can be transformed.
If you live in a home built before 1950, your walls are likely lath and plaster, not drywall. Plaster is brittle. If you try to hang a standard rail closet system from it, you risk cracking the plaster keys or pulling the studs loose under the weight of your wardrobe.
Professional closet installation in Washington DC accounts for this by utilizing floor-standing systems. Unlike wire shelving that hangs from the wall, our custom wardrobes transfer the weight of your heavy winter coats directly to the floor. This protects your fragile plaster from bearing the structural load.
Furthermore, we know that historic row houses settle. Floors are rarely level. We use integrated leg levelers hidden behind the toe kick to adjust the cabinetry perfectly. This ensures your shelves are straight and your doors hang true, even if your floor dips two inches from one side of the room to the other. You get a built-in look without the risk of structural damage.
Living in the city doesn’t mean you have to live in clutter. By looking at your home differently, using the height of your walls, rethinking your bedroom layout, and choosing furniture that pulls double duty, you can find space you didn’t know you had.
Your historic row house has stood for a century. With the right updates, it can work perfectly for the way you live today.
As a content manager at Renuity, Francheska spent nearly two years helping homeowners discover the possibilities of transforming their spaces. Renuity is a leader in home remodeling, specializing in everything from windows and doors to bathrooms and home storage solutions, and she’s proud to be part of a team that prioritizes quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction. She graduated from Florida International University with a double major in International Business and Marketing, ranked among the top programs in the nation. Her passion for home improvement runs deep—since childhood, she’s been inspired by watching HGTV and seeing the magic of remodels come to life. Now, she channels that passion into connecting readers with ideas, tips, and solutions to create homes they love.
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