Organizing Your Room Closets

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Organizing Room Closets

How to Organize Your Closet for More Room

If you’re like most people, a major complaint about your home, condo, or apartment is the lack of adequate closet space. While in some cases this is a legitimate annoyance, for many people it’s simply a matter of poor organization. The old saying, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is often the culprit behind the problem of too little closet space. Things end up in our closets in a haphazard fashion, which of course ends up cluttering things up and robbing us of space we need later on.

The answer for those of us who actually do have enough room in our closets is to get things organized in there. Fortunately, this isn’t difficult to accomplish – even if you have a true disaster area going on in there! It can be done in one weekend for the average house or apartment with only a few closets.

A Simple Blueprint to Organize Closets for More Room

Work on one closet at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed. The first step is to remove everything from the closet. Just take it all out. You need a blank space in order to visualize how things will best fill up the available space.

Depending on whether or not your closet has shelves above the clothes hanging area, you may want to consider adding a row of shelving to make better use of that space. Don’t underestimate the power of adding shelves to a closet! It’s easy to do and can really help you store things in a much more orderly manner. Your local home improvement store (Lowe’s, Home Depot, even Wal-Mart) will have everything you need to do this yourself.

Install Shelves

Look for basic wood closet shelves in kits that include the brackets and screws you’ll need to hang them. Or, if that’s not available, all you need is one or two planks of wood (depending on how long your closets are), some metal “L” brackets, and dry wall anchors and screws. One-inch thick pieces of planking that are 10-14 inches deep should suffice for most closet designs. Ask a salesperson to help you find the appropriate brackets and screws. Putting up the closet shelves is very easy, and can be done using just a level, a pencil to mark where the bracket screws go into the wall, and a drill or power screwdriver.

Compartmentalize Your Closet Space

Once you’ve got the bare closet set up as you want it, it’s time to organize the things you had in there before they go back in. The way to think about it is to compartmentalize your closet space. Basic closets have two flat surfaces (floors and shelves) above and below the main clothes hanging area.

Don't Forget The Floor

Floor space is your best ally! Instead of having your shoes lining the floor from end to end, get and use a revolving shoe tree. This lets you better utilize the empty space from the floor to the hanging clothes, freeing up the floor space for other uses.

Use Stackable Bins or Drawers

If you have a lot of bulky clothing that you used to hang in the closet, use closet drawers or stackable plastic bins instead. Things like sweaters should go there during the warm months instead of hanging and taking up space. When the cold months arrive, switch out the sweaters for shorts and t-shirts. The point is to have something in those drawers throughout the year so that the clothes that are hanging are the ones you actually wear at any given time of year.

Back To The Shelves

This leaves the upper flat surface space – your closet shelves. Many people keep business papers, home insurance policies, family keepsakes, or other miscellaneous items in their closets on those shelves. That’s all well and good, but there’s no need for them to take up a lot of room! One or two plastic storage containers or small fireproof filing cabinets will definitely keep those important things more organized and safer. Push them to the corner of the shelf so they’re out of the way. Use the central space for items you actually use, such as folded clothing, hats, socks, scarves, etc.

The final piece of the puzzle for getting and keeping more organized in your closet room is to avoid drifting into old habits. By keeping the things you use most often closest to the door of the closet, you’ll help yourself avoid the temptation at the end of a busy and hectic day to just toss things back in there willy nilly. Set yourself up right from the start to make it easier every day to keep things organized!