Nine times out of ten, there is going to be something you wish you could change about your closet. If your closet is something you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, maybe it’s time to reorganize your space. Watch this video for the ten things you must consider when organizing your closet and make your closet a perfect ten.
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/tcdcloset10.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and we’re here in my new closet. I’m so excited. We’re going to talk today about the 10 things you must consider when organizing any closet. Now, these are most important when you’re going to have a custom closet company come in and re-do your closet, or if you’re going to re-do it yourself. But it’s also important to think about these things, even if you are just re-organizing the contents of your existing closet. So, these have to do with the functions of the space, what’s going to be stored in here, and it’s just something to think about that’s going to make it easier to choose and shop as you go along.
I want to say another big thank you to my friends at More Space Place. They did this closet, and we just did our previous video that was a little tour of some of the very cool accessories that we put in here. You can see a lot of the closet in this video too, but make sure you watch that other one as well. So thanks again to More Space Place.
We’re going to start with number one. And these are in no particular order, by the way. They’re not ranked by importance, but you have to start somewhere, so the hamper is number one. You want to think about the dirty clothes that are going to be generated as you change clothes in this closet. Do you want to locate the hamper here, and if so, do you want to have sorting hampers with lights and darks and delicates? Or do you want to have a separate hamper for dry cleaning for example? Think about whether you want to locate that in here and work that around your plan. You can certainly have it in the bathroom if you want to, but it’s great to have it centralized with all of your clothes.
Number two, you want to consider your shoes. You want to count how many pairs of shoes you have – it might be kind of eye opening to get that number –and when you do that, it’s going to make it so much easier to shop for and purchase the accessories you need . So if it’s shoe racks, shoe shelves, you’re going to know what you need when you go out shopping for that. Make sure you pay special attention to your boots. If you have tall boots like you see here, you’re going to need to have special accommodation for those, a special shelf that’s taller. I actually have short boots and tall boots, and I had to figure that out with the arrangement of the shelf adjustment. This is one of the advantages to having a custom closet, so More Space Place put in adjustable pegs so that I can move these shelves around. That’s always a really nice feature.
The third thing to consider is short hanging clothes and long hanging clothes. So, if you are re-designing the closet, it’s important to actually measure the linear of feet you have of short hanging space, meaning short clothing like blouses and pants and skirts, and long hanging space, like long dresses and long coats. So, you may even want to measure the longest piece of clothing you have, such as a very long dress or something, making sure that you hang that rod at the appropriate height when you are re-doing the closet.
Number four, folded stacks. And we have another video about this that talks about whether you should fold things or hang them, this is personal preference, but if you want to a lot of people like to fold their sweaters and their pants and their sweatshirts and their sweatpants. So if you have that, you may need to have extra shelf space to accommodate those. You also might want to buy shelf dividers like you see here, to hold up those stacks and keep them from toppling over on each other.
In a related category, there are other kinds of folded clothes that go into drawers. That’s number five. So your underwear, your socks, your pajamas, your workout clothes, whatever those things are that need to be in drawers, you may want to try to centralize those into the closet. So, you can even move a small chest of drawers into your closet. Think about that. I’ve done that countless times for clients. And you can have all your clothes in one place. That’s really great. That’s what I did here. I’ve got these built-in drawers that you can see, and that has been wonderful.
Number six is purses and handbags, tote bags, whatever you want to call them. But when you have your purses lined up on a shelf, sometimes they take up way more space than you think. You may be able to accommodate those with a different kind of product or some hooks on the back of a door. But whatever you do, make sure you understand what you have so you can accommodate those. Here you can see that I used one of these shelf dividers to prop up my little small clutch purses and separate them from the other purses. And I have hooks where I’ve hung some of my large tote bags, so that works out well.
Number seven is self storage in general. So you may have other kinds of items that you put in your closet, like luggage. I have suitcases up high on my shelf. I’ve got old blankets, some memorabilia, things like that, that are up way high, but again, I needed to make sure I had enough shelving in here to make that happen.
Number eight, jewelry and accessories. We’re talking about ties and belts and scarves and necklaces and earrings. And you can see here behind my door, I had a very small wall that wasn’t usable for anything else but putting hooks on it. So I did. I found all these acrylic hooks. I put all my necklaces here. This gives me great visibility to my necklaces. It’s behind the door so it’s out of the way. And then I have the belt rack and the scarf rack that you can see here. And we also have jewelry drawers in this closet that you may have seen in our other video, where I have rings and earrings and things put away too.
Okay, number nine, seasonal clothing. Now, here in Austin, Texas, we do not have as much of an issue with this as some places do. But I know some people have even entire other closets that are seasonal storage and they have to shift that a couple of times a year. Here we have to be kind of ready for anything. In Austin it may be shorts one day and parkas the next. But we have all that together in one closet here, but if you have seasonal storage under the bed, or whatever, you might want to think about that when you’re re-designing and see if you can fit it all in. One thing some people do is they put a third level of – a clothing rod – up really high if they have super high ceilings in that closet. That can work really well.
And number 10 is lighting. Now, this is not as obvious as the shoes and the hanging clothes, but it is very important. After I’ve built this house I’ve realized that I don’t have enough lighting in here. I’m going to have a handyman come in and put in a large fluorescent fixture because I really can’t see as well as I would like to in here. It’s important when you’re trying to match things up, or you’re trying to tell navy versus black, and you certainly don’t want to go out of the house mismatched. So, it’s great to have good lighting, it just feels better, and you can have better visibility, which is the goal of any organizing project.
We hope you have enjoyed this tour of the new closet. Let me know if you have any questions here below in the comments. And we will see you next time. May you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for closet design tips and tricks or how to organize clothing.
Leave a Reply