Better Organize Your Closet Space

Closet space is an extremely rare commodity in my home. Between my wife and my self, we never seem to have enough of this to go around. In times past, this shortage of space would lead to arguments between us as to who needed the space more. Since we both really like to shop for clothes, this was a perpetual debate, with no clear end in sight. That is until we decided to become a little more organized in how we utilized our shared space. Here is how we did it.

Before beginning your organizational efforts, a word to the wise: This is a process that is going to take some time. I would strongly suggest that you do not attempt to do this in an afternoon. You are probably going to want to set aside a full day to complete this task properly.

When you are ready to begin, you need to remove everything, and I mean everything, from your closet. The only way to truly be able to organize anything is to begin with a blank slate. Having your closet emptied out is going to give you the ability to know what exactly what your spatial limitations are. These limitations are important, since if you have too little space, you may need to find creative ways to increase that space.

Once you have cleaned out your closet, you are now ready to begin your next step. What you are going to do here is separate your clothing into three large piles. One pile is for the outfits that you are going to keep, one is for what you are going to throw away, and the final one is for the items that you are going to either give away to friends, or donate to a charity. Before going through your clothes, you may want to check with your local charitable organizations as to their guidelines for donated clothes. Believe it or not, some charities do not accept clothes depending on their condition, price, or other reasons.

Once you have decided what you are going to keep, and what is going to be removed, you are ready to begin the next step in your organizing task. You now need to separate your clothes according to their season. Yes, I said their season. You want to separate your summer clothes from your winter, and your spring from your fall wardrobe (though there seems to be some overlap in this category). By separating your wardrobe into the different seasonal groups, you are going to be amazed with the results. Utilizing this step alone is going to increase your available closet space by ¾. Storage of these out of season item is really rather simple. Place them in either boxes, or vacuum sealed bags (which reduce the size of the package) and then put those packages into your storage area.

Finally, you need to organize the current season within your closet. Simply place your larger items (pants, slacks, dresses, etc.) towards the back of the closet, while you place the smaller items near the front. By doing this you are going to be able to see what you have available at an easy glance, while at the same time organizing your closet for size.