Your closet is probably the most fun and yet the most frustrating place in your home to organize. But, closet organization can make life so much easier. Just imagine waking up in the morning and having everything in its place, making getting ready a breeze.
When organizing your closet, you will want to focus on five major areas: clothes, shoes, handbags, jewelry, and other accessories. Let’s take a look at some organizational ideas for each of these areas to create the perfect, functional closet that works for you
Clothes
This one seems a bit obvious, but it is by far the most important of the five categories. It will all depend on the type of closet you have in your home. Think about the space as it sits now. Will you be hanging most of your clothes, or folding them and putting them on a shelf or in a dresser? Do you have enough space for your things, or do you need to “create” some space?
If the majority of your clothing will be hanging, invest in some decent hangers. The better the hanger, the more it can hold and the longer it will last you. Your best bet will be the more sturdy plastic hangers as opposed to wire hangers. These will hold up under years of use and are relatively inexpensive. If you have tops that tend to fall off traditional hangers, use felt or velvet hangers that will help keep your items in place.
If you’re working with a dresser or shelving, try organizing your clothing so that you can easily see each piece. This will ensure that you will never question where things are and makes you more aware of what you really have. In a dresser, take the extra time to use the Marie Kondo fold so that when you open each drawer every item is clearly visible.
Whether you are working with hanging items, shelves, or dressers, organize your clothing by type (jeans, shorts, t-shirts, blouses, etc.) and color code each of those categories. This will make outfit selection so much easier.
Shoes
When organizing your shoes, keep to the same concept as you did with clothing: you want to see everything. If you have a few pairs of shoes, this is a very simple rule to follow. You simply get a shoe rack, fill it up, and call it a day.
However, if you have a massive amount of shoes (me!), you need to be a bit more strategic.
If space allows, you can lay out your shoe collection under your hanging clothes. This makes it quite easy to put together a full outfit, even before coffee.
If space is somewhat limited, you can still accomplish the mission by investing in an over the door shoe organizer, or in acrylic shoe boxes that can be easily stacked.
Handbags
Handbags should also be readily available in your organized closet. That way you can grab the right one without having to search all over the place, wasting time and probably destroying your closet.
Try using your bags as wall art in your closet by hanging them from Command hooks (push pins can work in a pinch). If you have very expensive handbags, place them in some sort of protective covering (like these handbag bags). This will keep the dust off the material and keep them looking fresh and new between uses.
Jewelry
Two things to remember when organizing your jewelry: accessibility and containment.
Keep your jewelry accessible. Appeal to even your laziest self by keeping these items readily available at all times. Everything should have its place. The top of a dresser is a great place for your jewelry, and it’s very easy to make it aesthetically pleasing with a nice jewelry box or stand.
Because jewelry tends to have small pieces, you want to keep things well contained. A very practical and cheap option to keep your items contained, is to place jewelry in a tackle box. These already have sections built in to prevent things from getting lost or tangled.
Other Accessories
If you have other accessories (such as hats or scarves) you want to make sure you have a place for these items as well in your newly organized closet.
Have fun with any hats by hanging them neatly on the wall. If your closet doesn’t allow for this, find some decorative hat boxes and make them a unique part of your decor.
Depending on how many scarves you have in your repertoire, you have a couple of options. You could fold them neatly on a shelf, or invest in a special scarf hanger. Either way will keep these items available to you and looking organized.
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