I love organizing clothes closets! It’s definitely one of my favorite spaces to work in, and I’ve had the joy of organizing hundreds of closets over the years. Here are the top tips I find myself telling all of my clients about organizing their closets:
1. Most people will need to make the clothes fit the space, not make the space fit the clothes. This means you will need to sort and pare down your clothing so it will fit comfortably in your closet. But this is a good thing! Take the opportunity to weed out clothes that don’t fit right, don’t look right, are out of style or just don’t get worn anymore. It will make getting dressed in the morning so much easier!
2. Not sure if you are still wearing it? Try the hanger method: Put all of your clothes on hangers and turn the hangers backwards on the rod. As you wear clothes throughout the year, wash them and put them back on their hanger, but this time place the hanger the correct way on the rod. At the end of the year, whichever clothes are still facing backwards on their hangers are the ones you didn’t wear, and you can safely donate them, knowing you won’t miss them.
3. Almost everyone needs a combination of closet rods and dresser drawers/bins-on-shelves to store their clothes. If you are an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of person, then it will be best if you hang as much as your clothing as possible on hangers. Group your clothing on the rod by category, meaning all the dresses hang together, all the skirts hang together, etc. Dresser drawers/bins are good for socks, underwear, lingerie, tights and leggings, athletic clothing, and pajamas.
4. The WORST kind of dresser drawers are the big, old wooden dressers with the drawers that are not on glides. If your dresser drawers are heavy and awkward to open, then you will subconsciously avoid using them, leading to piles of clothing building up in your bedroom. Remedy this by using wire mesh drawers instead. You can find them at Ikea and The Container Store. I like to place them on the floor of a closet underneath the closet rod.
5. Your closet will INSTANTLY look better by getting all matching hangers, placing everything facing the same direction on hangers and grouping your clothing categories by color on the rod.
6. I’m not a big believer in swapping out clothes seasonally. Most people do not have the extra storage space in their house nor do they remember to do this task during the season. It’s much easier to pare down your closet so your entire wardrobe will fit. You will also be much likelier to remember what you own and actually wear it.
7. It’s so much easier to keep drawers tidy if you use drawer dividers, especially when it comes to things like underwear, socks and tights. You don’t have to spend a lot on this though. Shoeboxes make great dividers, as do plastic bins from The Dollar Tree.
8. Take the time to shop for a few closet organizing products for specific types of accessories. Things like scarf or belt/necktie organizers or hooks on the wall for hats can make a BIG difference in how tidy your closet feels and how easy it is to find things. Plus, they tend to be very affordable solutions.
9. Make sure you have a laundry hamper either in your room or right outside in the hall so you have a convenient place to throw your dirty clothes. Using a hamper will keep your clothing from piling up in your room, and it will make your room smell better.
10. Maintaining your organized closet is all about your behavior. Trying setting up some new routines such as a nightly 5 minute tidy-up of the dresser top or a Saturday morning 10 minute session of putting your clothes away. A little bit of maintenance done regularly will go a long way toward keeping your bedroom clean, fresh and inviting to be in.
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