by Jennifer Swanson
I’m looking at advertisements for two different closet designers. One shows a woman’s closet, about eight feet wide. It looks beautiful. On hangers, there are three dresses, two blazers, four blouses, and three skirts. On shelves, there are a few perfectly folded sweaters here and there. Oh, and only six pairs of shoes. My favorite touch is the vase of fresh flowers on a closet shelf.
The other ad shows a closet approaching the size of my bedroom. There’s an island in the middle of the closet. Hello? I don’t even have an island in my kitchen.
Most of us have more clothes to accommodate than the first ad. (Otherwise, would we even need new closets?) Then try to put all those clothes into a small closet, and we quickly reach overload. Yes, we do tend to keep too much, but there’s a balance between the above examples and closets crammed with stuff we don’t wear.
Custom closets can be great when you know your needs and have realistic expectations of what they can do for you (contact me if you want a referral for a great closet designer). But I never know quite what to say when I enter a new client’s home and she laments, “I paid a fortune for this new closet, but I can’t figure out what to put in it…”
The lesson here is to make the space fit your stuff, not the other way around. Your closet might be a fine space for clothing. Unfortunately, by the time you stash a bunch of other things in there, your clothes end up in piles on chairs, the bed, the floor, or crammed (and wrinkled!) into the existing closet space.
So what do you do? There’s no way around it: You have to sort it all out. While there are many ways to better arrange your belongings within a closet, the only way to decide how to improve the use of the space is to determine what you have and how much there is.
Before you do anything else, determine the real purpose of your closet. Anything that doesn’t fit your criteria (the “misc”) goes into a “Put Away” box for later distribution to other, more suitable areas of your home.
Pull it all out, sorting as you go. A garment rack is useful for hanging clothes as you sort. Plus, when you’re finished organizing your closet, you can use it in your laundry or guest room. Important note: Don't skimp on quality here. Look for a garment rack with all metal parts. The racks made with plastic connectors can't hold much weight and may collapse.
Don’t worry yet about what to keep or toss. Just group similar items together. Sure, if you discover something you know you haven’t worn in a year or two--and have no real intentions of wearing again--save yourself time later by tossing those into your “Give Away” box or bag.
Decide how much is enough. Once you can see how much of each item you have, it will probably be easier to let go of the excess. When in doubt, ask yourself whether your extra stuff is worth the space it requires. Store or give away clothing or other items you don’t like or aren’t using.
If you have difficulty letting go because it feels like you are being wasteful, check out my recycle/donations page for a list of organizations that need what you have.
Beware of spending money unnecessarily on closet gadgets to make room for a collection of “just in case” clothes (just in case I need five outfits to paint the house, just in case I lose weight and want to dress 80’s style, just in case...) You probably have a better way to spend your money.
However, if you have a lot of nice clothes that require special care (dry cleaning and/or ironing), a closet upgrade might be worthwhile. But wait until you have a better handle on your real needs. Then contact me, and I’ll refer you to a good closet installer.
After you decide what to keep, put those things back into your closet. Arrange your clothes by length. This will give you a clear picture of how much free space you have beneath the shorter garments. You can use this space for drawers, bins, cubbies, etc.
A few more guidelines:
- Sort your clothes by season, making the current season’s clothing most easily accessible.
- Position clothing so that you can reach what you need most often. Assign specific places for pants, t-shirts, sweaters, etc.
- Think carefully about what you store on the highest shelves. Some things (especially clothing) can be very hard to keep neat when they are too difficult to retrieve and put away.
- Choose matching hangers for a unified appearance. White plastic hangers are inexpensive, better for your clothes, and don’t tangle as easily as wire hangers.
You can find an amazing array of closet project options at your local home improvement or discount store. For now, I’ll give you a couple low-cost, almost-no-work tricks for the typical “rod and shelf” closet:
- Sturdy wooden or plastic crates, when placed on their sides, create dividers between stacks of garments and add extra space above.
- 1-inch key rings from the hardware store cost me 35 cents each, and they can triple hanging space. Just be absolutely certain your rod can handle the weight! Slip one ring over the neck of the first hanger. Hang a second hanger from the first ring. Add more rings and hangers for a cascading effect.
With a little creativity, the possibilities are truly endless--no matter what your budget. Let me know what you come up with!
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Editor's note:
I have to tell you the story behind the key rings. It all started when I heard of using milk jug rings on hangers. They worked for a while, but then broke under the strain. So I “upgraded” to a set of plastic shower curtain rings. Sturdier, yes, but they kept popping open.
So off I went to the local hardware store, in search of something round and metal. This was a real hardware store--not one of those big home improvement centers. The staff was friendly, and they were intrigued by my project. The selection was fantastic; I couldn’t believe how much cool stuff they had! I was thrilled to discover the key display. You’d think I had won the lottery. I’m sure the staff thought I was a little weird.
My point is this: If you’re going to get organized, you might as well use a little creativity and have fun with it. --JS
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