Closet Organization

How to Organize Your Closet Space

Closet organization is one of the toughest projects for many people, even those with spacious walk-in closets that have ample room for storage. When faced with a giant pile of clothing, shoes, and accessories, the idea of closet organization may seem daunting, but it’s actually much easier to organize your closet space than you may think, especially with the large selection of closet organizers on the market today.

The first step to closet organization is to sort through what is causing your clutter in the first place. You may be surprised at the amount of items in your closet that can be stored away, donated, or even sold. Parting with some of the things in your closet may be difficult at first, but the things you keep around even though you don’t use them are actually preventing the items you do use from being more accessible. A nice rule of thumb is if you haven’t used it in the past two years, you should get rid of it.

Once you have parted with as much as you can, it’s time to organize what you have left. Sort items into similar categories, such as shirts and blouses, heavy sweaters, slacks and pants, full-length clothing, belts, jewelry, hats, purses, and other accessories. Decide what clothing items need to be hung up on racks and what can be folded and stored in drawers or bins. This will give you a basic idea for what kind of storage you need in your closet. You may need more racks for full-length clothing, or you may be able to double up racks if you have more shirts and blouses that don’t take up as much vertical space. If you have a lot of small accessories, storage units with small drawers will help you organize these items. You can also use colorful bins or classic wicker baskets to organize smaller accessories. For people with a large amount of belts, neckties, or hats, special organizers can be bought to store these items in a way that makes them easily accessible without taking up a lot of space. You can even opt for the more extravagant electronic revolving tie and belt racks if it is within your budget.

If you have limited floor space and lots of shoes, vertical storage is a good way to go. Vertical racks and shelves can be installed to store shoes, or you can opt for canvas shoe storage models that hang from closet racks or on the back of doors. This will free up a lot of floor space and give you better access to your footwear.

The top shelf in most closets is a disaster zone of disorganized piles stacked up to the ceiling. This is easily solved by adding shelves, drawers, or decorative storage bins to your top shelf. Once you have a more structured way to store things on your top shelf, you will find it to be much easier to keep this area from becoming a mess.

A commonly missed opportunity for storage is on the back of the closet door. This is an ideal spot for organizing with hooks. Robes, jackets, hats, belts, and purses are just a few examples of the types of items that can easily be hung on hooks installed on the inside of your closet doors.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much time or effort to get your closet organized so you can start enjoying the things you own!

Article by Elizabeth Walling.