Does your closet always seem cluttered and unorganized? One day your closet is clean, and the next, there’s a pile of clothes scattered on the floor, shoes are everywhere, and you feel like you have too much stuff? We’ve all been there. Luckily there’s still hope! With the help of these genius closet storage ideas and thoughts about life, you will be able to reach the optimal bedroom of your dreams.
Source: Amazon ClosetMaid
1. The dreaded cleanout
The first thing to organize a closet is to go through all of your clothes, belts, shoes, etc., and throw out all of the stuff you no longer need. This may take some time, and usually, it is difficult to part with some clothes you love yet never wear.
Think about what items you should keep, why you keep the item, and why your closet is full of clothes, shoes, stuff, and you still don’t know what to wear.
Are you keeping the sweater for some memories of the past? Or do you think you will wear the dress when you are slim again in the future? Maybe just because you spend a lot on this coat but you have never worn it even once in the past five years.
The old sweater will not take you back to the past. If you have sentimental old clothing, you don’t wear but just can’t throw out before, try to put them in a box somewhere around the garbage can, someday you will think why not just keep that in memory.
When you are slim again, you will buy a new stylish dress as a prize for your effort.
If the coat was not worn in the past five years, you are not going to wear it in the next five years. Because you may not like it or it is not suitable for you.
Source: Unsplash-Sarah Brown
So sort out all clothes that you don’t wear anymore, you love but are not suitable anymore, new or almost new but you never wear in the past three years, you love but are worn-out and outdated, pack them, resell, give away or throw them out! So are the shoes, accessories, and bags.
Make sure your packing bag is sturdy enough, you don’t want your clothes to be scattered on the road.
Your closet is only for the stuff you do use.
2. Let your closet mainly serve your clothes
Excluding clothes, Is your closet filled with shoes, bags, unopened gifts, books, toys, and beautiful packaging bags that you can’t bear to throw out?
If you want to have a neat closet, please clear out all things that should not be in the closet.
Books should be placed on the shelf and toys should be placed in the toy box.
Open the gift box, see what the surprise is, group and place your gift where it belongs.
If your closet is large enough, your shoes can be cleaned and placed at the bottom. Your seasonal clothes and blankets can be vacuumed and placed on the top of the closet. The handbag can also have a dedicated location, such as on the top shelf. Remember to stuff your bag with things to keep it in shape.
3. Sort clothes by season and color
After decluttering your closet, you might feel that you still have too much clothing and struggle to find more space.
It’s a good idea to sort your clothes by season and boxing up the season you don’t currently need.
For example, if it’s mid-July in a hot climate, you’re not going to need that cashmere sweater, puffy jacket, or scarf. Instead of just letting all these cold clothing take up space in the closet, you can put these items into labeled boxes and store them elsewhere until the season comes.
After packing up all clothes you don’t currently need, if you want your closet to look neat and beautiful, then sort your clothes by color. This will please you every time you open the closet.
4. Use rolling carts or dressers
If you have enough space underneath your clothes hanging rack, you can organize your closet even better by bringing in a rolling cart or dresser. The extra drawers & compartments help you store items like underwear, shorts, socks, or belts that are more difficult to organize.
While you’re thinking of purchasing a new dresser or cart, don’t forget to take measurements to ensure it will fit perfectly in your closet. You can find cheap dressers or cheap rolling carts at furniture stores like Ikea or discount stores like Marshalls or Ross.
Drawers can easily be stuffed into those clothes that you don’t want to wear anymore, such as outdated, worn, and stained clothes, socks, and underwear. Because ‘Out of sight, out of mind’.
Declutter your drawers and only keep what you actually use.
5. Organize Your Shoes
To avoid your shoes from being scattered all on your closet floor or around your house, you’d better establish a specific place for your shoes. Shoes can be all over the place, especially if you have a countless number of pairs. You can use an over-the-door shoe organizer. These organizers usually hold around 10-15 pairs of shoes and will save you lots of space.
If you have extra space on the ground, you can also bring in a shoe rack for more shoe storage. These racks vary in size and shape and can be incredibly helpful for organizing your shoes effectively.
6. Baskets, baskets, baskets
Baskets can be used for everything small in your closet. You’ll be most organized if you use baskets for every single type of item, like one box for socks, one for bathing suits, one for underwear, etc. Be sure to label each box, that way, you’ll easily find what you need when you go to your closet.
If you don’t have drawers in the closet, you could use stacking baskets or box drawers for optimal organization. These are awesome for closets because you won’t have to stack baskets each time, and everything is easily accessible. These stacking basket drawers can be found pretty much anywhere, like Walmart, Target, Marshalls, or Amazon.
7. Use leftover wall space
If you have lots of open wall space, you can add shelves, hooks, or baskets above your closet. Adding shelving can give you more room to place small baskets to organize smaller items. Hooks are a great idea as well because you could hang up cardigans, jackets, scarves, and even hats.
There are also baskets that attach to walls, which are perfect for that extra touch of organization. Small wall baskets like this are great for storing non-clothing-related items like hair scrunchies, clips, and other accessories.
If you need a place for jewelry, you can use command hooks or simple nails on your leftover wall space. It is a handy way to hang hoop earrings or necklaces and prevent them from tangling. You could also install a towel rack on the wall and use hooks to hang up necklaces and bracelets.
8. Fold clothes to save space
Another way to organize your closet is to fold clothes to save more space. Instead of hanging up every shirt and pants, try folding things that won’t wrinkle and place these in a drawer or shelf. Some example items you could fold instead of hanging up are jeans, shorts, leggings, skirts, sweaters, and sweatshirts.
You can try “file folding” in the closet to save more space and time in searching for clothes you want. It’s a minimalist storage tip promoted by Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo. When you are doing laundry, fold every piece in a rectangle, then place them vertically in the closet and drawers.
The more clothes you fold, the more room you will have to hang up clothes known for wrinkling, or you can even make enough room for other hanging organizers.
Folding and stacking clothes is an excellent option if you are limited on hanging space and shelf space. You can also roll certain clothes, like leggings, and put them on shelves.
9. Store bags and purses on the top shelf
Bags and purses can take up a lot of room in your closet. If you want to organize your bags effectively, you can place all bags, purses & backpacks on the closet’s top shelf. So they are out of the way until you need them. Another way is to put bags inside of bags. This way helps bags keep their shape without stuffing other things inside.
If you have particular purses or bags that you use daily or very often, you can get over-the-door hooks to hold these bags in an easily accessible spot. These hooks are incredibly cheap and can be found online or at multiple home goods stores.
