Linda Koopersmith, The Beverly Hills Organizer, worked with actress Christina Hendricks (Mad Men, Good Girls) on the remodel of a 1908 Craftsman home. Koopersmith paired her innate architectural design skills and Hendricks’ keen eye for interior design to tackle the home’s small spaces and created unique storage solutions from the kitchen to the primary bedroom.

The two have been friends for more than 15 years, having met when Koopersmith, a professional organizer and designer, worked on Hendricks’ closet.

The best part of this current collaboration, Koopersmith says, is that she knew what needed to be done from an architectural design aspect, and Hendricks trusted her even though she is not a licensed architect. "I just know how to do it," she adds.

While Hendricks is not an interior designer, she has a natural skill influenced by her love of art, travel, and the various film and TV projects she’s worked on over the years.

In addition to keeping notebooks with pages of magazines from 25 years ago, Hendricks has images locked in her head of things she likes and can then blend them with influences from her travel and career, allowing her to pull from that assortment as a reference point for interior design elements.

The decision to acquire the Los Angeles 1908 Craftsman home, which is an investment property for Hendricks, was based on many factors, including her love of historic homes like the Craftsman she grew up in when she lived in Portland, Oregon.

"It was a very happy time of our lives, plus my father was always remodeling it. So, to me, a Craftsman is there to be remodeled," Hendricks says with a laugh. "There are a lot of similarities to the house. In fact, the show that I was last on called Good Girls, the girl who played my best friend, her house was a Craftsman on the set [and it] was almost identical to this house. So, to me, there’s a lot of comfort in these kinds of homes, [they’re] what I grew up with and feel very cozy."

This particular home caught the eye of developers interested in replacing it with a multi-unit property. But Hendricks’ desire to preserve a piece of history prompted her to step in.

"I was like, ‘I’ve got to save this house,’" she says. "There are so many of these little treasures that keep getting torn down. And I just think it’s such a sort of character of our cities, having neighborhoods with bungalows and Craftsmans. It’s in a city with not a lot of history, and I think we just have to hang on to these as much as possible."

To preserve the home’s old-school charm, the goal was to keep as much of the original built-ins as possible. And if they couldn’t keep them, they rebuilt them in a way to make it historically what would have been there, but a bit more convenient for 2022, Hendricks says. They also chose fixtures that complemented the time period of the home, but with an updated appeal for today’s homeowner.

"We didn’t want it to be a museum. But we wanted it to be unique and special. And whoever stays in this house, it’s going to pull at their heartstrings. It’s definitely a heartstrings kind of house," Hendricks adds.

Hidden storage

Unique aspects of the remodeling project include the upstairs bedrooms with hidden closet space. The home originally had three small upstairs bedrooms. Koopersmith encouraged Hendricks to combine two of the bedrooms to make one larger primary ensuite with a sitting area wrapped by windows, showcasing a lovely city view.

That process required making several changes in the architectural design, including removing a wall and shifting the upstairs hallway, which previously had a very small linen closet, over by 18 inches. This change allowed her to use double doors on a larger hall closet.

As for the closet in the primary bedroom, it pretty much remains intact, with an added shoe rack built in the space gained from moving one of the bedroom walls. The previous position of the closet door prevented the ability to incorporate a nightstand, so Koopersmith says she moved the door to the center. One special feature is that the door has a seamless look created by the wallpaper design chosen by Hendricks, and instead of a doorknob, a push-to-open gold plate was incorporated.

While the primary bedroom closet is a relatively big space for that type of home, it still was not large enough. The solution was to add a wardrobe with double and long hanging along one of the bedroom walls.

The primary bedroom features several unique storage touches, from the concealed closet to the wardrobe with hidden access to the primary bath.

"If you have a couple living here or somebody with a lot of clothes, that isn’t enough space [in a 1908 built home]. So, I designed these wardrobes because you know why build closets, right?" Koopersmith explains with a laugh. "But you also need access into the bathroom. When you have an expensive house like this all primary bedrooms have a bathroom."

And how did they create that access? With a nod to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a hidden door in the wardrobe opens directly into the bathroom, and that can also be accessed from the hallway.

The second upstairs bedroom was also reconstructed to include a new bathroom ensuite with additional storage space. Along with two built-in wall cabinets, the space has a closet with a sliding door.