How to Organize a Closet | Best Tips

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How to get a picture perfect closet with a few simple tips.

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Here are some easy tips on how to organize a clothes closet to make it a more beautiful and functional space.

Organizing a clothes closet can be a great thing to do, especially at the start of a new season when it’s time to change out your wardrobe. It’s a good time to make a list of what you have and figure out what new items you need to add when it comes to clothing, shoes, and accessories.

Here are some times when it can be good to think about cleaning out and organizing a closet:

At the start of spring, when it’s time to switch from cold weather to warm weather clothing.
At the end of summer, when it’s time to think about back to school and the fall season.
During fall, as the weather starts to get too cold to wear warm weather clothing.

Keeping your closet organized makes it easier to know what you have to wear. That makes it easier to plan outfits and create a capsule wardrobe for each season, including spring, summer, fall, and winter.

In addition, organizing a closet is a way to create the type of closet that you love to look at each day by using stylish and functional storage and organization accessories. Since we spend so much time looking into our closets, it helps when the space looks good and feels comfortable.

Here are some tips on organizing your closet in a way that can make your space look and feel more organized.

How to Organize a Closet | Tips and Ideas

1—Visualize your space.

Coming up with a design scheme and organizing your closet makes the space look and feel more intentional. Since the closet is a space that many of us use often, it’s not unusual to want your closet feel well organized and comfortable.

Visualize your space and what you want your new space to look like. It can be helpful to find photos in magazines, books, or on social media that show exactly what you want, and then find ways to recreate the look in your own space.

2—Create an inventory.

Pull out every single item in your closet and make an inventory. This includes all your clothes, accessories, jewelry, handbags, shoes, and any other items that you store in your closet. Sort items into two groups—things that you wear and things that you don’t wear. Consider finding a new home for things that you no longer wear.

3—Get rid of clutter.

This is probably one of the most important things to do when it comes to cleaning and organizing any space. Get rid of clothes and accessories that you no longer wear or use. If you have a few pieces of clothing or accessories that family or friends have admired—and you don’t wear or use them anymore, give them away. You can also donate gently used clothing and accessories to charity, or sell them online.

4—Make sure everything has a place.

One of the best ways to keep a closet clean and organized is to make sure that everything has its own place. That way, when you remove an item and then replace it, the item goes into its own spot—out of the way of other items and in the place that you made for it when you re-organized the space. This is another one of those most important things about keeping a space clean and organized: everything should have its own spot, and go back into that spot at the end of the day.

5—Think about what you need.

Think about the best ways to organize the items in your closet. If you have lots of long items, like dresses and coats, then you’ll want to be sure to have space for these. If you have lots of shirts, do you want these on hangers or folded and placed in drawers? How to do want to organize underwear and socks? What about accessories, like handbags, scarves, hats, and shoes? Also think about winter storage: where will bulky items like winter coats, sweaters, and boots go during the winter? Finally, where should your laundry hamper go?

6—Utilize the space well.

Use space-saving organizers to help you utilize a space more efficiently.

7—Color coordinate your clothes.

Grouping clothes and accessories together by colors can help to give your closet a super organized look and feel.

8—Add lighting.

Adding extra lighting can make it easier to see what you have in your closet. Small lamps and under-the-shelf lights can be helpful for bringing additional light to a closet space.

9—Add a mirror.

Not only can a mirror help you check your outfits before you go out, it can also make your space seem bigger. If you have an empty wall, then consider mounting a wall mirror in your closet.

10—Personalize your space.

A few choice pieces of art, a rug, or accent decor are perfect for personalizing the closet and making it “your” space. Choose art and decor that matches the color and design scheme of your closet or home, for consistency, so that the closet feels more like another room in the home rather than a storage space.

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Ways to Organize a Closet

There are many ways to organize a closet. How you organize your closet depends on everything from the size and shape of the space to your budget for reorganizing the space. Here are some ways to organize a closet—and hopefully turn it into a space that you love.

Custom Closet Organization Systems

Custom closets are another way to go, when you are serious about organizing your space.

You can choose from different options, depending on your budget. Generally, it’s a good idea to keep in mind every single item that you want to store in your closet space—and to know your closet’s exact dimensions—when choosing and ordering a custom closet system.

Depending on the company that you use to create your custom closet organization system, you may receive a blueprint based on the information that you provide and then you may also schedule a few meetings to discuss the plan with a designer, before finalizing plans for installation.

There are different budgets for building custom closet systems.

Higher end custom closets may be customized to fit into your space and design scheme more closely—for example, ordering shelves that match the wood finishes in your home.

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DIY Closet Organization

If your budget doesn’t allow for a custom closet system, or you prefer to use a few simple methods to organize your space, then DIY closet organization may be the solution for you.

Here are some of our favorite items for organizing a closet space—including everything from shelves to baskets.

Closet Organizers

1—Hangers

Hangers can even serve as a decorative element in a closet. Pretty wood hangers, satin hangers, velvet hangers, or hangers in interesting colors can all add functionality and style to a closet.

2—Baskets

Baskets are a decorative way to organize your items, and they make your closet look good, too. You can change up the look of a closet by changing the color of the baskets and the bins that you use.

Neutral colors are great for giving a space a light and airy feel. If you have a smaller closet, then consider using lighter shades to make the space look bigger.

You can use baskets to hold things like folded shirts and sweaters, and it gives the closet a neat appearance.

3—Hanging Closet Organizers

Hanging closet organizers can cover a lot of things to make your closet more organized. From hanging shelves that can hang on the bar, the door or a wall to special hangers that can hold your whole outfit on one hanger.

4—Shelves

Make sure shelves are steady, and don’t overload them when it comes to items and weight. It can be a good idea to mount the shelves to the wall, to help keep them in place.

5—Shelf Dividers

Shelf dividers can be handy for dividing up shelves and making it easier to create neat piles of clothes, shoes, hats, etc. They are also great for storing handbags and backpacks upright.

6—Drawers

Drawers are good for holding smaller items, like underwear and socks. You can also use them to store jewelry. Shallow drawers work especially well for holding flat jewelry organizers.

7—Shoe Boxes

Shoe boxes can be a great way to store shoes. Clear shoe boxes let you see what shoes are stored in what box. Be sure to let shoes dry and air out before storing them.

For fancier shoe storage, use a shelf with clear doors to store shoes. The clear doors display the shoes, giving your closet a chic look.

8—Garment Bags

When the fall and winter seasons are over, coats can be dry cleaned and stored in a garment bag until the cold weather season arrives again.

9—Accessories

If you have shelf space, then storing hats on shelves can be a neat way to display them, giving you both closet decor and storage.

If you have a more than a few hats, then hat boxes can be a useful way to store them—especially when they are out of season.

Hooks can also be good for storing hats (and baseball caps) if you need a space-saving solution to store them vertically on a wall or door. Hooks can also be good for storing scarves and handbags.

10—Handbags

Arrange handbags on shelves, or use handbag boxes to store them. Similar to your favorite shoes, handbags look great stored on shelves with clear doors for display.

Hanging purse organizers are another way to store handbags. Over the door purse organizers and handbag shelf caddies are also popular ways to help organize bags.