Closet Organization

The closet. What to do? Here are some common problems and simple solutions:

1. The closet door is never shut!

Try painting the inside of your closet an interesting color that contrasts nicely with the walls in the room. That way, people will only remark on the color. You'll never have to shut the closet door again!

2. I can never find what I'm looking for!

Hang similar clothes together.

This may or may not be helpful, but this is how clothing in my closet is organized (from right to left, why not):

  • Formal wear on the extreme right (Like I'm ever gonna wear that bridesmaid dress, or (god forbid) wedding dress again. Shove them in the back corner!

  • Dresses

  • Slacks

  • Skirts

  • Jackets/Shirts/blouses according to sleeve length

The genius of this layout, if I do say so myself, is that all of the short garments are on one end. This leaves plenty of room below to store shoes, etc (i.e, more shoes!).

OK, so what this tells you is that I'm basically a freak when it comes to organizing my clothes. But this is why: I've probably wasted the equivalent of 2 years of my life looking for clothes. Then it occurred to me that I wasn't getting any younger, and I decided I'd rather not spend any more years of my life trying to find my clothes. It took awhile to get the closet set up this way, but now it's easy to maintain.

Besides, it makes me late when I can't find my clothes. The only alternative to organizing my closet is for me to show up at places on time but half-dressed, and that wouldn't be good for anyone.

3. I don't have enough hangers for everything!

Ah, a sure sign that it's time to thin out your wardrobe. Instead of buying a 10-pack of hangers, find 10 items of clothing to donate to Goodwill.

4. What about organizing things other than clothes?

This is where you need to read about the wonders of plastic drawer units on our Organization Page, if you haven't already done so.