Five Tips for organizing your closet

 

 

Five Tips for Organizing Your Closet

Whether your closet is, well, the size of a closet or the size of a bedroom, you may find it gets messy. And when it’s messy and disorganized, you’ll be very unhappy when you can’t find that favorite shirt.
We’re just going to look at clothes closets and linen closets as coat closets and cleaning closets and pantries will need a post all their own.

Get Started

Step one is to get started and look honestly at how much stuff you have versus how much closet space you have. For a great article plus a printable worksheet, check out the Creativity Exchange here. She states:

The hardest part of reorganizing a closet is getting started. Most organization websites will tell you the first thing you need to do is to remove everything from the closet. Yikes!! I completely disagree. I personally think it’s actually the worst thing you can do right off the bat because reorganizing a closet effectivelytakes time. Like days! I promise you, It will work a lot easier if you take your time and work section by section so you can walk away and go back to it. You don’t need to worrying about having to put everything back in the closet because something comes up or you get side-tracked.
Your main purpose to reorganizing a closet is to set it up in a way that it will stay organized. The best way to do this is by taking your time and thinking through “trouble spots” and locating the right storage pieces. If you remove everything from the closet, you will have a room somewhere turned upside down and it’s too tempting to just put everything back in and give up.

The other up-side is that you can clean out your closet over a period of weeks rather then trying to set aside a day and then shoving everything back in the closet at night when you didn’t make as much progress as you’d like.

Assess Your Trouble Spots

If you know you always throw your shoes in one spot, or washcloths always get mixed up with the towels, plan a system around this to change your habits. Maybe you can find a basket to put in the linen closet and all of the washcloths go there. Perhaps you find a nice shoe tree or a hanging shoe holder.

Find Poorly Used Space

Again from the Creativity Exchange (and you should check out the photos)

Locate areas in the closet of wasted or poorly utilized space where you could add storage pieces or better maximize the space. Highlight these areas on your sketch. Consider moving existing storage pieces if need be and be sure and look at where clothes are hanging as well. Consider even rearranging where you hang things in order to maximize space.
In my daughter’s closet, I realized that by simply moving her skirts up to the top hanging rod, I would create tons of new storage space for shoes.

Fling and Purge

Yes, it may be difficult to get rid of that shirt from college that made you feel fabulous, or the dress you wore on your first date. Maybe you can find a different place to store it other then in your closet, unless you really do wear it regularly. Take out things that you just don’t wear, that don’t fit, that don’t make you happy. And the same goes for towels and sheets. Don’t keep the towels in the closet that should be in the garage rag bag.

Little Tips

• For a linen closet, keep all sets of sheets and pillow slips together.
• Decide if you prefer keeping all of your shirts together, or if you prefer organizing by color or outfit. This has to work for you.
• Folding things neatly really does save a lot of space.
• You don’t have to spend a lot of money on storage solutions. Check out bins in the dollar store. They can be used for holding flip flops as well.
• Use shelf dividers in your linen closet to keep things from getting all smooshed together.
• From Better Homes & Gardens: If you have a very tiny closet, consider putting a dresser in and adding in shelves above and around for more storage options.

What’s your favorite tip for organizing a closet?