Closet Organizing 101

It's a new year. What better time to organize your closet than now? Not only will you love your newly functional, organized closet space, you may even save yourself some time when looking for what to wear. Follow these organizing tips and make it a fun weekend project!

  

Edit, Edit, Edit

A major part of organizing a closet is editing your clothes. That is, going through each piece to see what will stay and what needs to be tossed. Figure out what you wear the most, what you wear on occasion and  what you haven't worn in the past year. Anything that has not been worn in the past year, you can donate, sell or throw away. 

Setting up boxes like these will make it easy to edit out what you don't want.

 

Sort it Out

Next, sort out your clothing by type: sweaters, shirts (long sleeve/short sleeve), dress pants, jeans, skirts, etc. Once clothing type is all sorted out, short each clothing type by color and fabric heft:  light to dark and lightweight to heavy. Next, figure out what should be hung and what should be folded (That is if your closet has space for folding. If not, you can always purchase a hanging folding shelf from Target or The Container Store).

 

Start Hanging

When hanging your garments, leaving the right amount of space between hangers is key to keeping an organized closet. You don't want to be bothered with pushing tons of clothes out the way to get to one shirt. Use the finger spacing practice: holding your hand up towards the hangers, slightly spread your fingers apart (about 1/4 inch) and place each finger between each hanger. This creates uniform spacing. Make sure to hang your garments by type, style and color based on how you sorted it out in the previous step.

Purchasing hangers that are all the same color creates an organized look. Specialty hangers are available for specific garments. Container Store hangers, $5.99-$12.99, containerstore.com

 

 Folding

When folding garments, make sure that the thicker, heavier fabrics are on the bottom of the pile and the lighter fabrics are stacked on top. This will prevent your clothes from toppling over. Along with the hanging folding shelf  you can also use bins to place like - folded items in. Shelf dividers work wonders too!

Folding accessories for closet. Clear Shelf Divider, Rectangular Bins - containerstore.com Hanging Storage -ikea.com

Shoes

We've talked about the different ways to store your shoes in the post here. Just to recap, there are several storage solutions that you can use to store your precious shoes. Before storing, you must edit out which shoes get to stay. Just like you did with your clothes, go through each pair of shoes, see which ones your wear consistently and on special occasions. Any pair of shoes that you have not worn in the years, its safe to say its time to donate or toss them. Also, any shoes that are over worn and really old looking, just toss it.

Shoe Storage Boxes, $1.89 - $14.99, containerstore.com

 Ready to get your closet organized? Send me photos of your newly organized closet and I'll post them on here!! Happy organizing!!