Closet-Tec, Inc

Closet Tec will build you a custom pantry

blogadmin — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:07:07 +0000

Imagine having a pantry filled with everything you need to prepare almost any meal. That dream can become a reality with assistance from the exert designers and organizers at Closet Tec. No longer will you have to worry about room for stocking extras alongside the essentials you need for everyday food preparation. All it takes is an initial request and the assessment begins. Your budget and needs are top priorities when it comes to creating an organized space customized just for you.

Our experts understand there is no one-size-fits-all solution in pantry design. Of course, space is one consideration, but the cook’s needs on a day-to-day basis are also factors in design. Taking measurements, asking questions and getting personal input are all part of the process in upgrading for optimum organizational efficiency. Using 3D visuals during the design phase, you can make changes that are simple to implement. As your pantry area evolves and begins to take shape, you will see how easy it is to make existing space even more effective.

In the final stages, you and your designer will discuss cabinet or shelf colors and hardware finishes to complement the style. While your consultant will make suggestions, the ultimate design is up to you. Our pros always understand the importance of letting your personal style shine through while guiding you toward the best in pantry efficiency. When the design is complete, professional contractors arrive with everything they need for installation. Closet Tec will not consider the project finalized until you are completely satisfied.

We can accommodate modest to expansive pantry upgrades while making the process simple for you. You will have a say every step of the way in the ultimate goal of providing workable storage space for stocking up and keeping every item in its place.

Custom Closet Organization

blogadmin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:40:59 +0000

Ever look inside your closet full of shoes with frustration and dreams of someday making it into an easily manageable space? With the unique and custom designs available at ClosetTecInc.com, these dreams are more than possible.

The steps to creating a custom closet organization system are quite simple and empowering. The designers at Closet.Tec will measure the space to be transformed and help get ideas flowing. Since shoes can be tricky to keep together and hard to display, Closet.Tec found a solution for even the most impressive collection. By building "shoe-box" size cubby holes into the closet system, shoes are put into perfect view and kept together, in original condition. The best part is that you can choose exactly how many shoe compartments are incorporated and can even add or remove more to suit your needs.

Maintaining a neat, organized closet and shoe collection has never been more simple or custom than with Closet.Tec. Once the design is created and you are completely satisfied with the system, choose the finish and hardware to keep the customization going. Installation is completed within hours. It truly is a system built by and for you to make life as stress-free as it should be.

Making a Custom Master Bathroom Closet

blogadmin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:10:09 +0000

When you need to have a nice closet for your master bathroom or for the closet that is down the hall from your guest bathrooms, coming to Closet Tec to design a space that can hold all the items you need is the thing to do. Not only can you maximize the use of the space that you have, but you can make sure that everything is organized at all times.

There are many different options when it comes to putting together a closet that makes sense for you. You can actually start with the types of racks or shelves you want. Some of them pull out or have bins that close up like cabinets. In others, the setup looks more like a refrigerator with multiple options for storing items.

You can even use Closet Tec items to store things on the backs of the doors so that you are using every bit of available space that you have. In this way, you are never going to have to take things out of the closet to make space. It will become the perfect place to store your towels, washcloths, and sundry bathroom items.

Transform your bathroom closet today with Closet Tec.

Closet Space Options

blogadmin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:32:44 +0000

The word closet typically brings to mind a place to house clothing and shoes. Often times a home will have more closets than needed for clothing items and getting creative will make these spaces into functional areas for a multitude of things.

So Many Options

Looking around a home at the clutter can make many of us exhausted. Taking a closet and making it into a place to organize these things will put a smile on any face. Whether it is a tiny closet or large walk-in, the options are unlimited. Closets can be organized to hold linens efficiently with varying size shelves for sheets, blankets and pillows. Crafters, imagine a place to have supplies neatly organized and at the touch of your fingertips! Extra canned goods and other non-refrigerated foods don’t have to be stored in the kitchen. How about making a spare closet into a well organized pantry? For those who like to shop in bulk to save money and ensure they never run out of supplies, a closet made into a storage place is very handy. First aid supplies, hair products and cleaning supplies can be but away neatly. Tired of seeing toys all over the house? A closet converted to a toy storage area can be easy for even the youngest child to keep neat!

Larger closets can even be made into sewing rooms with shelves for supplies, patterns and material. How about small study for the student in the house with a built in desk and storage for school supplies?

Imagination is Key

Converting a closet into usable space is only limited by the imagination. There’s no longer any reason to have a cluttered or unused closet in the house, let your imagination go, come up with an idea and make it happen!

Creating a perfect master bedroom closet

blogadmin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:45:24 +0000

In most homes, the closet in the master bedroom is not adequate for all of the clothes, shoes and other belongings that people have. A great solution would be to create a unique and usable custom closet. By going with Closet-Tec, a homeowner will get exactly what was always envisioned for the closet.

The design process is quite easy. There is a free consultation that will be done in the home. During this, exact measurements will be taken and some recommendations will be made so that some informed decisions about the new closet can be made. The representative from Closet-Tec will then take the information and turn this into a three dimensional rendering of what the new closet will look like.

Once the homeowners are happy with the design and layout of the new closet, all pieces are professional constructed and then installed in the home. This will ensure that the closet is put in correctly and exactly as it was envisioned. The design process is quite easy and actually exciting for any homeowner looking to get an amazing master bedroom closet. There are amazing possibilities when it comes to the layout of the closet. It just takes a professional like Closet-Tec to make these dreams a reality.

Organize with Garage Systems

blogadmin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:21:24 +0000

These days, everyone is trying to cut back, but no matter how hard homeowners try, there is always extra stuff that needs to be stored for the next season, the next year, and even the next generation. However, parking cars on the drive way because there are too many boxes, tools, and ping pong tables in the garage went out of fashion a long time ago. Bringing homes up-to-date and back in fashion is easy with custom garage systems that organize storage, create a home for clutter, and make room in the garage so that the car can finally be parked in its home again.

Although it might be time to update the storage system in your home, there is no reason to get rid of the things that never go out of date; they just need to be stored properly. Holiday decorations and family heirlooms might not have a place to be on display all year around, but they should have an organized place to be in storage until it’s their time in the spotlight again. Storing items in a custom garage system will make it easy to find items when it’s time to take them out. It also gives them an easy, out-of-the-way place to be so that when they are behind the scenes, they aren’t tripped over in an inconvenient spot or even seen at all.

Paperwork and other necessary evils in the category known as “clutter” need to have a place so that they don’t take over rooms in the house. Create a designated place for needed paperwork for easier filing of the important items and filtering out the junk. Stacking papers on top of papers makes it easy to confuse the recycling with the old tax with the news from the kids’ schools. Garage systems create a place for clutter so that opening the garage door isn’t an embarrassment. Make room for the car and use the garage as it is intended by adding custom garage systems.

Closet.Tec’s 13 Steps for Survival

blogadmin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:31:03 +0000

As all other companies in their industry, survival during the recession was key. Designers were let go or kept on a commission-only basis, installers, manufacturing and expenses were reduced to the absolute minimum for the company’s survival.

The following 13 steps were also taken:

1) Replace the production of drawers from pre produced drawer parts (blanks) to an in-house production of drawer boxes built from wood components. Closet.Tec today is the only local company to produce custom wood drawer boxes, dado sides, no exposed nails of other unsightly construction methods. A custom routing table saw was developed to produce 5mm routing and the drawer box design automated for manufacturing to match the construction method.

2) Expand the software modules in solid to allow more rapid designs by less number of designers. Designers were reduced to two persons whom were able to meet the market demand for solutions and alterations. Without the software this personnel reduction would not have been possible.

3) Reduce component and panel purchases to only meet current project sales. No more purchasing for inventory or future expected sales.

4) Pay off all debt, including trucks and equipment on lease purchase options.

5) Reduce advertising to only proven markets, like the local newspaper and custom magazines like “The Home Mag”.

6) Re-negotiate building rental with the landlord, the company has a 7,000-square-foot manufacturing and showroom site. Rental rates were cut by agreement to repay the delta to the landlord once production volume reached an agreed monthly rate. Repayment would be over time based on the attained agreed to volume of sales.

7) Re-hire the installation team on a part time bases versus the original full time employment bases. No guarantee of full daily employment unless there was scheduled installations. Work with the installers to get them side jobs for Closet.Tec customer and allow them the use of the company resources to complete the side job(s) – like use of the company vehicles, tools, etc.

Expand the focus of the company to more home office and media center solutions

9) Move from melamine only solutions to also include wood based offerings for closets, home offices and media centers.

10) Focus on melamine solutions for the base of a design and wood solutions for doors, drawer faces and trim for higher-end customer demand.

11) Produce designs for all prospects within days, not weeks as in the old days of demand and success.

12) Maintain good financial relationships with the bank and vendors of company credit line.

13) Re-evaluate and change all office procedures. Replace internet and telephone offerings with a lower cost internet solution. Expand the use of Quick Books for budget, performance and expense tracking. keep payroll in house. Expand internet advertising expense and update the company Web site.

As good luck and planning would have it, Closet.Tec remains a vibrant business and looks forward to expanding once again with even more bottom line profit and increased employment. It is clear that with the actions taken in the past difficult years has equipped the company to grow with the market demands.

Closet-Tec: Boom Times to Survival

blogadmin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:29:56 +0000

From 2005 to 2007 my business Closet.Tec thrived in Sarasota, FL. Like most companies in the burgeoning home storage and organization industry, we grew at a rapid rate, in tandem with the housing boom, at approximately 25 percent a year. We hired more installers, more shop workers and more designers to cope with the rapid growth and the increase of customer demands.

During the economic downturn, one of Closet.Tec’s strategic decisions was to implement 3-D design software and automated pricing.

In 2005, our company had two people in manufacturing, two designers, two office personnel, and two installers. In the years following Closet.Tec grew to five in manufacturing, five designers, six installers and two in the office, with demand for even more personnel. But we only added staff as a last resort. What a great story: a small company growing without significant debt, very good returns to the bottom line, and annual sales in the multi-million dollar range.

We added new equipment, including a Biesse beam saw, smaller table saws, more trucks with full equipment capable of 100 percent on-the-job-site installation, repair, and even re-configurations.

During the early years of all our designs were done manually in 3-D. Each new designer had to be trained and educated in the art of 3-D design. A model for pricing had to be developed and refined to insure consistent pricing of all projects by each different designer. With our great success we decided to expanded beyond closets into fine custom media centers, home offices and custom furniture pieces, all of which increased the complexity of the design and pricing.

Recognizing that we had begun to shift into a more automated world for design, pricing and production, we decided to hire a computer experienced person capable of placing the 3-D design onto a 3-D CAD system. This ensured accurate manufacturing, exact angle calculations and produced a blue print for the installers so the project could be properly installed on the customer premise.

In hindsight, this was a super decision. Now installations were more accurate and manufacturing was not constantly re-doing cuts, re-drilling and redoing edgebanding for each job. Secondly, the installation team was assured it had all the required parts to install the job before they left the plant for some remote sites, often a hundred miles or more from the manufacturing site.

Then the world changed. Southwest Florida, like other regions, went from a peak of 35 percent housing growth to zero growth. Companies began losing business at a rate they could not imagine. Home building halted, developers crashed, projects ended abruptly, and unemployment soared. The demand for custom closets stopped almost overnight. Closet.Tec, like other companies in the area, was faced with layoffs and the spectre of having to halt operations.

Closet.Tec evolved from a simple closet manufacturer to a producer of additional storage solutions for the home and commercial office.However, we had made one smart decision back in 2005 that was key to our survival. We had purchased a Biesse panel saw to complement our Altendorf sliding table saw. This allowed fewer workers to produce the goods required for installation of the sold products. Secondly, we had evolved from a simple closet manufacturer to a successful producer of fine home offices, media centers, custom accent pieces and commercial office solutions in medical, small legal and travel offices. Also, we had taken the 32mm closet system and developed 32mm solutions for these other markets. We developed solutions to use melamine desktops in place of traditional Formica or solid surfaces. This gave us the advantage of not just building closets, but providing a complete solution to market needs. This strategy resulted in the company producing a balance sale of closets, media centers, home office and yes even garages and pantries.

Next, we had to move from hand designs to the world of automated designs and pricing.

I had a successful 35-year career in the high tech market, so I began the search for the right solution for Closet.Tec to design in 3-D. After nearly a year of evaluating current offerings and cost, we selected Planit Software’s Solid design solution.

The software was installed in 2006 and for the next 18 months modules were developed that matched our needs in the design of closets, home offices, wall beds, garages, media centers, pantries and custom furniture pieces. All designers were trained on the final solution and then custom development began for output directly to manufacturing for the production needs of the company. This was key in the coming years when designs had to be completed quickly and with fewer designers to meet those market demands. (Closet.Tec’s 13 additional steps for success.)

Looking Toward Expansion
At the height of the economic downturn, survival was key. Designers were let go or kept on a commission-only basis. Installers, manufacturing and expenses were reduced to the absolute minimum to ensure our company’s survival.

But as good luck and good planning would have it, Closet.Tec survived by making strategic business decisions. We remain a vibrant business looking forward to expanding once again with even more bottomline profit and increased employment. It is clear that with the actions taken in the past difficult years have equipped the company to grow with the market demands.

Every employee of this family-owned business has had to extend his work commitment to the company while maintaining the company position of excellence. This was proven by our 2010 selection as the “First Place Closet Company” in Sarasota by the Herald Tribune’s annual survey of BEST companies. In addition, we received two Top Shelf Design Awards from CLOSETS, plus we were recently listed on Wood & Wood Products’ WOOD 100 list of the fastest growing woodworking companies.

Closet Tec – 13 steps for survival

blogadmin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:29:05 +0000

Closet Tec, a local Sarasota fine custom closet, media, home office and garage company was featured in Closets Magazine as a “Profile Company” in 2004. They felt it would be a good story to tell the readers what happened to make Closet Tec successful in and during the down market we have experienced. They just issued a new article in the November/December edition of Closets Magazine and I think this is a super story, especially since the company was selected last year as the reader’s choice local closet company in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune 2010 Readers Choice.

Click the links below to read the articles and tips.

http://www.closetsdaily.com/articles/closet-design-case-studies/From-Boom-Times-to-Survival-133812773.html

http://www.closetsdaily.com/articles/closets-magazine-archives/ClosetTecs-13-Steps-for-Survival-134826673.html

Bring your closet up to date

blogadmin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:07:25 +0000

In popular culture, closets have come to be used figuratively as hiding something bad or evil, or a place of childhood fears. Well in reality, closets are used for general storage and clothes. Closets range from different types: broom closets, utility closets, wall closets, walk-in closets, and so on. Homes already have closets built in their floor plans, but this should not stop a homeowner from denying themselves the closet they want, or need. A custom designed cedar closet is a great choice, and it is simple and easy to install.

Cedar wood is used for many things. Adding it to build your closet has positive benefits. First, cedar contains air spaces inside, which allows it to be a natural insulator. It keeps your possessions in your closet cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Second, these same air spaces keep cedar wood light and durable, and it reacts well with stain and finish. And third, cedar has oils that make it a natural insect repellant. This is good to have to keep insects from destroying clothes and other things.

Creating a custom cedar closet is fun and exciting. At Closet Tec, they make the process easy and enjoyable, not to mention quality that you will love for a life time.