Keep Your Closets Organized and Looking Their Best

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As professional organizers, we organize many closets every month, and there are a few key strategies that we apply to almost every single one to create a functional and beautiful system that our clients will love and will be able to maintain. Here are our a few of our top tips for organizing your closets and keeping them organized.

Create Zones

When hanging clothes, we like to organize by type first and then by color. For shirts, for example, we group by sleeve length, and then organize in rainbow order (think ROY G. BIV—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet), and then place white and black (and gray) on opposite ends of your rainbow. Prints are always tricky, so we usually try to find the dominant color and use that to figure out where a print will go in the “rainbow.” If you need other visual cues to keep your zones separate, consider adding labeled or color-coded hanging tags to separate each category, this is an especially helpful strategy for kids’ closets.

Matching Hangers

Swapping out all of your old, mismatched hangers for a set of matching ones is one of our top tricks for transforming a closet. The uniform look you achieve by doing this eliminates a lot of your visual clutter almost immediately. Slim, velvet covered or flocked hangers are a great option, especially if you are tight on space. For skirts and shorts, use the versions with the clips (you can even buy the clips separately and attach them as needed to your regular velvet hangers); for pants, you might consider the slim, rubber-coated, non-slip options that are open on one end, making it easier to place your pants on and take them off their hangers. If you have more room and want to go for a different aesthetic, substantial wood hangers, available in a variety of finishes, are wonderful for giving your closet a high-end look. If you want a little glam, consider acrylic hangers. Like wood hangers, though, the acrylic options are pretty, but more expensive.

Hang More, Fold Less

If you have the room, try to hang most of your clothes. Folding and stacking t-shirts on shelves is time consuming, can lead to a messy pile if you struggle with folding, and also makes it more difficult to find what you need (Don’t you hate when your favorite shirt ends up at the bottom of the stack?). But depending on your space, stacking may be unavoidable. So if you must stack some of your clothes on shelves, use shelf dividers. There are a lot of clip-on options perfect for your shelf type on the market.

Deal with Dry Cleaning Right Away

Transfer dry clean hangers to your own hangers as soon as you can because the longer you wait, the less likely you are to deal with it. Plastic dry clean bags and wire, paper-covered hangers have a way of becoming visual clutter (as well as literal clutter). Put the dry clean hangers in a designated bin or bag to return to the cleaners for recycling, and make a point of actually returning them every two weeks (or at whatever interval is best for your dry clean frequency) so they don’t pile up.

Stuff and Divide Purses

To keep handbags looking their best and not looking droopy on your shelves, stuff them with butcher paper or acid-free tissue paper so they look full and keep their shape. This trick will also allow you to find the purse that you’re looking for much more quickly—droopy bags tend to fall over and become intermingled with your other purses. Once you stuff them, use shelf or clutch dividers to separate especially smaller bags, and organize them by color and size.

Use Boot Shapers

Insert shapers into your boots to keep them looking their best. There are a lot of boot shapers available for sale, but if you want to save some money, there are also some DIY tricks you can try: cut some pool noodles or file folders down to size, insert, and voila (check out our how-to video if you want to go the DIY route)!

Create Dedicated Shoe Storage

Create a zone just for shoes and try to avoid storing them in multiple places. If you don’t have shelves for your shoes, consider adding relatively inexpensive stackable shelves or clear, drop-front shoe boxes. The boxes—especially the best quality ones—are a more expensive option and a bit more limited in terms of the number of shoes you can store, but these can help add some organized glam to your closet.

Keep Your Floors Clear (if possible)

If you have enough storage room and don’t need to use your floors to store items like shoes, keep them as clear as possible. A clear floor will make your closet feel bigger and roomier and definitely look neat and uncluttered.