Organizing Your Closet

Tips to help you organize your closet.

Organize By Color And Group

If you get a lot of clothes for Christmas or a birthday, there is one thing to do: split your closet into sections. Like sweaters, long sleeves, short sleeves, and so on. Then organize by color group, all the same colors together. If you have shoes, organize them by type; like high heels, sneaks, boots an so on. Also for type of occasion; like party, wedding, sports, work an so on. It will also work with jewelry, head gear, dishes, movies and books too.

By Haley from Georgetown, DE

Organize Your Closet

Raise the closet pole up high but under the top shelf. Depending on the size of your closet, one side could be for the short items and the other for the long. Purchase ready-made book case type storage units (Lowe's) and put it on one side, I used two side-by-side and made an extra shelf for each one. You can store a lot of your sweaters, T-shirts, shorts, jeans, etc. on the shelves, much like they stack them in retail stores. There is storage room near the floor - to store shoes on the floor.

Everything is neat and very visible. Use larger plastic storage boxes for out of season items and store on the top shelf. You will find that you have more dresser draw space and less hanging of blouse type items in the closet.

Closet organizing units sold tend to be expensive if you buy the whole unit! Each situation will be different. Use your imagination.

By Syd Barr

Figure Out What You Don't Wear

First, get rid of stuff you don't wear. If you can't tell what you don't wear, he's how to figure that out: Hang up everything! Start with sleeveless shirts (even t-shirts) and organize them by color. Move on to short sleeve, then long, etc. When you can see how much you have of one type of clothing and how many of each color, it's easier to see what you never really wear. Of course, there are items you don't wear often but want to keep. But you'll see colors you don't even look good in (mine's yellow) and colors that don't "go" with anything you have. Once you have thinned out how much clothing you have, it will be easy to put things away.

I got this idea from the store I work in which hangs everything up and organizes by type of clothing and color. I did this to see what I really needed and what I didn't. The other piece of this puzzle was to decide how many of each thing I needed. NOT clothing I wanted, but needed. Nobody needs 14 of anything. The less you have, the less you have to take care of. The less you have to take care of, the fewer resources you will have to use to care for those things. It's a win-win for you and the world.

By Allison Dey

Colored Hangers

Use COLORED HANGERS to organize. Example: use RED hangers for Dress Clothes; WHITE hangers for T-shirts; BLUE hangers for School Uniforms. Then be sure to hang all the same colored hangers together.

By Anna

Tops and Skirts

Closets were just a suggestion when my house was built, they are so small. I wear knit tops with skirts everyday to work. I use hangers for knits with prints and fold solid colors in a dresser drawer. When wearing a skirt with print, I just go to the drawer and find matching color. With the prints hanging it's easier to see the designs.

By Sandy

Keeping Accessories for Outfits Handy

When putting outfits, in your closet, that have certain accessories, put them close by. So when you're dressing in a hurry, everything is close at hand and you won't have to go searching for that belt, scarf, tie, etc. This would be especially helpful, if for some reason, a pal had to go to your house to pick out an outfit for you.

By Terri from NV

Work Outfits

I like to hang necklaces, belts, pins, etc. that go with an outfit right in the hanger with the clothing. I try to set up my work outfits on Sunday afternoons, it makes for faster weekday mornings. It also gives me a chance to inspect these outfits for, snags, loose buttons, necessary ironing, etc. I look great all week and manage a few extra minutes sleep each morning!

By Terry

Hanging Pants and Skirts

Use safety pins or clothes pins to attach clothing like skirts, pants, shorts to wire clothing hangers, in case you don't have the convenient clip hangers like they have in stores, for your closets. I like using these pins instead of folding and draping the clothing over the hanger. This way, if your clothing has been hanging for a while, it doesn't have dust across the top of the fold, which is hard to get off.

By Terri from NV