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Take a good long look at your closet doors, if you can stand it. Are they kind of dinky? The type that accordion open and closed when they're not stuck semipermanently in one position? It's hard to imagine any closet door that adds to the look of a room, even if they're fancy (you've definitely seen pictures of supposedly high-end homes that have multiple sets of closet doors side-by-side —a.k.a. totally gunking up an otherwise inoffensive wall or hallway). We didn't realize how deeply the look of them bugged us, in fact, until we spotted this brilliant alternative in designer David Lucido's Manhattan studio: When he renovated the apartment, a contractor was tasked with removing a sort of half-wall that led to the room's one closet. In its place, he had installed a super-tailored wall-to-wall curtain, complete with a simple little valance to cover the mechanism at the top.
In addition to just being better looking than standard closet doors—like a rippled, textural accent wall rather than a door at all—the curtain also maxes out the space in your room because you can hang it so precisely. "The curtain’s in a track that's just two inches in front of the shelves," David explains. "It saves us space because it goes as far back as possible." Said track is also what makes it so functional, gliding open and closed without so much as a snag. (You'll be tempted to DIY a similar look using a tension rod, but we don't recommend it unless you like the idea of a curtain wall that sags in the middle and is kind of a pain to open and close.) For under $100, get a curtain track and simply screw it into the ceiling above the opening to your closet.
From there, it's a game of masking the mechanism (unless you want to pay to have somebody make you a minimal little valance like David's): The track itself can be partially concealed by painting it to match the ceiling. Then you'll want to look for curtains with hidden tabs or drapery hooks—rather than grommets or one of those scrunched up rod pockets—so that they can be affixed to the track in a way that conceals the little hooks as much as possible. One last thing: See the way David's curtain is sort of wavy when it's closed? You'll need curtains that are a bit wider than the opening for the perfectly rippled, I-just-threw-this-together-stylishly effect. It'll all be worth it when you first fling that thing open with a satisfying whoosh! from the track (and then whoosh it closed before any guests arrive).
