Tamarac, FL custom closets and home organization

Developer Ken Behring started Tamarac in 1963 with Tamarac Lakes, east of State Road 7, and the city incorporated the same year. He named it after the nearby Tamarac Country Club in Oakland Park. According to the city, his idea was to offer the convenience of a condominium with the privacy of a single-family house for active retirees: one-story homes with one or two bedrooms around a shared clubhouse, with a small monthly fee that covered lawn care, periodic painting and roof cleaning. The Mainlands, west of State Road 7, and the Woodlands followed, and the city's irregular shape, about 12 square miles in all, traces where the Behring Corporation was able to buy land. The city notes that Tamarac has since become younger and more diverse, and the 2020 census counted 71,897 residents, up 19% from 2010.

By Census Bureau estimates the median Tamarac home was built in 1981, and about six in ten homes date from the 1970s and 1980s. About three in four are owner-occupied. A little over a third are detached houses, about 13% are townhouses and other attached homes, and roughly 44% are in buildings with five or more units. At the 2020 census, about a quarter of residents were 65 or older.

In a two-bedroom home, the second bedroom is usually a guest room, an office and a storage room at once. A Murphy bed folds into a cabinet during the day, leaving the floor free for a desk, and home office cabinetry around it holds files, a printer and supplies. When family visits, the bed comes down and the office stays put.

Closets in homes of this age are often reach-ins with one rod and one shelf. A reach-in closet system adds a second rod, drawers and adjustable shelves, and a walk-in closet can be laid out with an aisle wide enough to move around comfortably. Because every design is custom, the designer can place the things you use every day between waist and shoulder height, with drawers in place of low shelves and seasonal items up high, so there's less bending and reaching.

Single-family houses and some townhouses add a garage to the list. Our garage storage systems put tools, garden supplies and hurricane-season gear such as water and batteries on the walls and ceiling, in cabinets, on slatwall and on overhead racks. Under the Florida Building Code, Broward is a High-Velocity Hurricane Zone with impact-rated garage doors, so racks go where the door's tracks and opener aren't. Swisstrax floor tiles can cover a worn slab.

If your community has an association or a gate, check its rules on contractor hours and parking, and tell the gate when the designer and installers are coming. Condo buildings may also ask you to reserve an elevator for installation day.

Neighbors in Coral Springs, Margate and Lauderhill work with the same designers. A free design consultation is the place to start, with measurements, a 3D layout and a written quote.