The valley has two very different kinds of houses. The newer ones arrived quickly as Bay Area workers looked east for space: Tracy roughly quadrupled its population over about 25 years, and Mountain House, conceived in the 1990s, is now a bedroom community of around 30,000 people where many houses include a small self-contained unit on the ground floor. They usually come with roomy walk-ins and big garages that fill up fast. Then there are the older neighborhoods, such as the 1920s Craftsman streets near Stockton's Miracle Mile and Modesto's tree-lined College Area, laid out after 1905, where closets were sized for far smaller wardrobes.
- Newer tract homes: walk-ins that need drawers, double-hang and shoe shelving in place of the builder's single rod and shelf.
- Ground-floor guest units: a compact reach-in and a Murphy bed can turn a small suite into a proper room for visiting family.
- Older bungalows: shallow reach-ins where every inch of depth has to be planned.
- Garages: closed garage cabinets keep dust off what you store through long, hot valley summers.