7 Closet Organization Tips You’ve Never Heard
You’ve heard dozens of organization tips but I’m willing to bet these are 7 Closet Organization Tips you’ve never heard! There’s more to organizing your closet than Marie Kondo-exiling half your wardrobe. While decluttering is an important and impactful step in any closet organization project, it’s just the beginning!
We work with all different types of clients—men and women, single and shared closets. There is an infinite spectrum of wardrobe collections! What we have learned as Professional Organizers is there is no vanilla cookie-cutter way to organize a closet.
Our goal is to not just organize your space (anyone can throw stuff in a bin) but to actually help you establish a routine to maintain your closet that suits your lifestyle.
Case in point – hampers. Where do you get undressed? Where does your dirty laundry accumulate? (I’m talking workout socks and undies, not your deepest darkest secrets =P) You should have a hamper located nearest this general vicinity. Sometimes that’s the bathroom or the closet, or the corner of your bedroom where you weigh yourself naked every day. This is a lifestyle dependent aspect of an organization project that will make a difference in your long term organizing success.
7 Closet Organization Tips You’ve Never Heard
1. Do Something with your ‘Clerty Clothes’
What are ‘clerty clothes’, you ask?! Every single person I have met has these. You know those clothes that you wear once to run to the grocery store for a few hours then you get home and change back to pj’s? It’s those clothes. You have worn them for a minute but not yet deemed dirty enough for the hamper.
We all know you’re not going to hang it back up as if it were freshly laundered either. These clothes often end up on the end of the bed or a chair or worse, the floor.
You heard it here first, friends! I have categorized these clothes for you: clerty! Seriously, type it into the Google Machine—it will have no clue what you are referring to … yet!
Now, what do we do with them?
A designated spot is needed just for these ‘clerty clothes’ so that they will not be forgotten. A giant, well mounted wall hook is my favorite choice. This will hold a pair of jeans and tee as well as those pajamas you wear two nights in a row. Not only does this save clutter from your closet floor but let this be the first place you look when it’s bus time for the kiddos!
2. Put a small trash can in your closet.
The farther we have to walk to throw something away, the less likely we will. It’s human nature, we’re lazy. Well, I like to think of it as over-worked and exhausted more than lazy, but lazy takes up a lot less words.
Think about the dryer sheets, tags, stickers, strings, wrapping that clothes come in. Easy access to a trash can within arm’s reach will guarantee no excuses for keeping litter out of your closet!
This can be a trash can on the floor tucked on the end of a hanging section or even a small bin on an eye level shelf (think tissue box size).
3. Rainbows will save you 2 hours a month.
Organizing by color and sleeve length will save you around 5 minutes every day, 35 minutes a week and almost 2.5 hours a month! Seriously, this is true.
Being able to put an outfit together in less than two minutes makes a huge difference in my morning routine. Rather than squirming to find the right top to match the a pair of pants, I can easily see my options and decide.
Rather than looking through 100 shirts to find the one you had in mind, you can look through 6 of your short sleeve blue shirts to to find the one you had in mind. Voila!
4. Dump the shoe boxes.
If Carrie Bradshaw can loose the boxes in her dream closet, so can you!
I promise, any shoes living on the outside will be worn and appreciated more! We tend to forget those boxed shoes because we can’t see them. That holds true for anything we keep in an unlabeled, opaque container.
It’s also more bulky to store different sized shoe boxes and takes up more square inches. Not only does it eat up more space, it tends to look messier and mismatched. That means if enough space is already a challenge, the boxes should be the first to go.
5. Commitment comes without a tag.
An item of clothing should only EARN a hanger to live on if you are ready to cut off the tag.
Not sure you want to keep it? I can tell you right now that means it should go back to the store.
Don’t have a pair of scissors to remove the tag handy? Duh, keep one IN your closet silly!
Once we hang a shirt on a hanger, it’s rare we go back and undo that item to return. Then why are we leaving the tag on? Commit to the top or swipe left for the next one!
6. Straight lines look better.
I never thought about my association with working in retail a lifetime ago to how I organize closets until I was writing this article.
As a high school and college student I worked part time for Journeys, American Eagle and Express. There are so many tricks to make the clothes appear more appealing which can be applied to your own closet at home.
One of my favorite tricks of the trade involves folded-over pants. Follow us on Instagram for an IGTV demonstration! Fold your pants over the hanger and put the butt side away toward the back of the hanger where the wall is.
This leaves a straight line facing you and gives the hanging pants a more aesthetic appeal.
7. More to folding than just Kon-Mari.
There are more ways to fold than the Marie Kondo “file fold”. Yes, everyone and their mother watched Tidying Up on Netflix. Marie is adorable and a great organizer! While an effective and useful method of horizontal folding, it doesn’t suit all drawers and clothes!
You must consider the fabric you are folding as well as the height of your drawer.
The softer, more flexible fabrics, such as workout clothes and pjs, generally can only stack. They just don’t have the necessary stiffness for an upright horizontal (also called accordion) folding technique.
The height of your drawers will also determine the best size you need to fold within. The taller drawers do best with taller items like jeans and sweaters or folding to fill the height as much as possible. I will be sure to do a folding tutorial on Facebook in the next month!
Which tip made your brain explode?
What one thing of the 7 closet organization tips are you most excited to implement as soon as possible? Ask any questions in comments and if we can do a demo video to help clarify, we would love to!
Cheers!
Meggie Mangione, Principal Organizer and CEO of Organized Life Design
P.S.: Don’t forget to head to our portfolio for so many more fun closet photos!
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