The Closet

If you've ever found something in the back of your closet and thought, "hey, I've been looking for that!" then you might benefit from some closet reorganization.

Over the years I've found a lot of tips and tricks for closet organization. Keeping and organized closet is important for knowing where your belongings are, for maintaining a tidy home, and for the overall efficiency and enjoyment of using your space.

How to organize your closet will depend a lot on what kind of space you're working with - do you have a lot of shelves? Built in drawers? How much hanging space?

You'll also need to think about what type of garments you'll be storing - do you have a lot of long items like dresses or skirts? Do you have business or formal pants that need to be hung instead of folded in a drawer? What about shirts and sweaters?

In this space, we have a narrow closet, with full length hanging space, and one shelf above. This client has a dresser, and an additional clothes hanging rack to make up for the limited space in the closet. There are lots of options for how to organize a small closet, and we've implemented some of them here.

On the shelf, we used three baskets of the same size to store smaller items. The shelf is fairly high, so we used it for things that this client doesn't reach for as often, such as bathing suits, baseball caps, tights and pantyhose, and other accessories.

The hooks over the closet door are a great renter-friendly storage hack. Just slip the hooks over the door and you instantly have space for your belts, and bags. These would also be perfect for scarves, bathrobes, towels, or sweatshirts. You can easily find over-the-door hooks are stores like HomeGoods, or anywhere with a housewares section, like Target. There are also tons of options online.

We grouped hanging clothes by type, starting with garments that take up the least vertical space, and then getting longer as we move to the right. We did this so that the laundry hamper would fit nicely on the closet floor, without any clothes hanging into it.

On the far left, we folded pants in half and used a skirt hanger with clips. You could also fold pants over the bar of a regular hanger to achieve the same outcome. Next we hung blazers, button down shirts, blouses, short dresses, and then long dresses. A storage hack for long dresses if you don't have a lot of vertical space is to hang the dress as normal by the shoulders or straps, then to bring the bottom hem up to the top and fold it over the bar of the hanger. This approximately folds the dress in half and significantly reduces the amount of vertical space you need.

Because this client had more clothes than we could fit in the closet, we also implemented a freestanding garment rack. These are easy to find online or in stores, and come in tons of styles so you can make it a statement piece or fit it in with your personal design style. For this client's home, we chose to display some of their favorite items, since they'll be out in the open. We grouped items by type, then sorted them approximately by color to create a visually appealing look.

If you want to get really into the nitty-gritty for making your closet or garment rack look tidy, you can place each hanger one or two finger-widths apart across the bar.

Before you even begin to think about hanging, though, you need to make sure that you're only keeping the items that you truly love, or that you wear often. Keeping clothes that you don't like, that don't fit you, or that you simply don't plan to wear will make it hard to store everything. The more overstuffed your closet is, the harder it will be to keep it organized.

I'm working on my tips for decluttering, so stay tuned if you want so advice on how to get started. Visit the Services page on my site to book a virtual or in-person session so we can work through your closet together. Sometimes the best way to declutter is just to have someone there to keep you accountable.

I hope this guide to closet organization was helpful for you! Happy organizing :)