Pin It

6 Tips for Organizing the Closets in Your Home

Digital Vision / thinkstock.com

The closet: a place to store and organize your belongings, where items are easy to find and easy to access.

Wouldn’t it be great if that were what the closets in your home were actually like?

It’s way too easy for closets to become the catchall space for any odds and ends that you don’t know what to do with, with clothes and shoes crammed recklessly into every nook and cranny. It’s time to take control and stop the madness. It takes organization and discipline to have an efficient closet—and here are 6 ways to make it happen.

Purge, Purge, Purge
This is a tip you’ve heard a million times before: the best way to organize your belongings is to get rid of the items you don’t use anymore. You know the drill: empty the closet and sort items into piles labeled “keep”, “donate”, “discard” and “repair”.

Here’s a trick that will eventually pare down your “keep” pile: start by hanging all of your clothes “backwards”, with the hanger facing the unnatural way. As you wear and return each item, place the hanger the normal way. When you do your spring cleaning next year, you’ll be able to see which items remain on the “backwards” hangers—these will be the pieces that weren’t worn all year. Do you really need to keep them?

Set Your Linens
Most people organize their linen closet by type: fitted sheets with fitted sheets, pillowcases with pillows, and so on.

From a practical standpoint, you usually require a whole set of fresh linens at a time, right? Instead of fishing through the various stacks to find the right coordinating pieces (and, in the process, wrinkling half the contents in the closet), why not store the entire set together, in one easy-to-find package?

Simply fold the matching sheets and pillowcases together, and slide the entire set into the largest pillowcase of the set. This will create tidy, convenient bundles that are easy to grab when they’re needed.

Manage the Space
No matter how large a closet, there never seems to be enough space—so be sure to make the most of what you have. That means putting nearly every single square inch to work.

First off, arrange the closet rods in a way that allows you store as much as possible. Long dresses might require the entire length of the closet, but you can usually have two rods on two separate levels for pieces like shirts and pants.

Don’t neglect the area at the bottom of the closet. Insert small shelving units to create compartments where you can store shoes, accessories, or items that need to be folded, like heavy sweaters.

Freshen Up
Keep your clothes and linens smelling fresh with a nice-smelling sachet. These are incredibly easy to make—you can even make a few extras to keep on hand for impromptu gifts.

You’ll need a few squares of natural fabric (try cotton, linen or burlap), something sweet-smelling to fill it up with, and some pretty ribbon to tie it all together. Dried lavender,  cedar wood, vetiver and cloves are some popular options for filling—and as a bonus, they are all natural moth repellents.

Find a System That Works
The best way to maintain organization in your closet is to find what works for you. Color coordinated clothing might look pretty, but it isn’t always practical.

Assess your habits and needs, and plot your closet’s layout accordingly. Keep everyday wear, like work clothes, in the easiest places to reach. Seasonal items can be tucked away in the back.

Commit to Clean
Usually, the chaotic closet doesn’t happen overnight: it creeps in slowly, one tossed in piece at a time. Catch it before it takes over your closet by committing to a regular closet maintenance regime.

Promise yourself that every time you put away clean laundry, you’ll do a quick closet survey, rearranging items that have been a little neglected. Hang up fallen shirts; re-couple shoes, and so on—these little tasks will take a few minutes at most, and will prevent  full-closet meltdown further down the road.

like downlinens

Comments

comments