I have a standard wall closet with sliding doors. Tops and dresses are hung on one side. On the other side, I have one of those hanging clothes organizers for t-shirts and a stack of plastic bins for work out clothes.
My dresser is only big enough for bras / panties (top), socks and sports bras (middle), camisoles, bathing suits, and pajamas (bottom).
On the shelf, one side is sweaters and the other side is jeans / pants / random stuff that doesn't go anywhere else.
It's a mess but every time I stare at it and try to figure out how to rearrange, I get overwhelmed.
I actually just organized my closet last week. I have a walk in with racks on both sides. On the right I have all my “work clothes” which are actually all athleisure. They are arranged leggings/pants/skirts/tanks/short sleeve/long sleeve/sweatshirts/dresses. On the left are my other clothes that are arranged similarly. I also organize by color within the segments and if I have several colors of one style they go together. On the shelves above the rack I fold jeans, nice sweaters and oddly enough, my crappy sweatshirts for bumming around.
Shoes are in a huge pile on the floor. Haven’t figured out a system there yet.
I have a walk in closet, but I have such a tough time keeping it organized. What's worked best for me is keeping dresses/skirts hanging on one wall. Short sleeves/tanks hung on the back wall, and long sleeves/blazers on the third wall.
I keep my shoes in their boxes, so I have all shoe boxes stacked on the shelving on top of where my clothes are hung.
I also bought a couple floor shelving units at Home Goods since there is so much floor space under the hanging bars. On those shelves I have bins of socks, swim wear, layering camis, and bralettes, along with my flip flops and any shoes that didn't come in (or no longer have) a box.
It's still a mess sometimes (mostly because I throw stuff on the floor a lot, but it does keep the clothing organized.
I'm lucky in that I have my own walk in (that I full designed and DH built) and the entire dresser. DH has the original walk in closet and a armoire.
One side of my closet has a space for long dresses with one shelf at the bottom for two pairs of shoes, then a large area with two racks. Top is work tops, short sleeve top, then long sleeve top. Bottom is pants on one side and tanks on the other.
Other side of the closet has a big area with a top rack for short dresses, the 3 long shelves below for shoes. Then next to that is two larger "boxes" of sorts that I keep the taller boots. There's also a window bench and a large full length mirror. I have a lot of hooks on the walls for hats, belts, purses, and necklaces.
Dresser has six drawers 1. all bras, underwear, socks 2. all sleep pants/comfy shorts 3. all other shorts (jean, khaki, etc) 4. all sleep shirts 5. all workout pants/leggings 6. swimwear
I kind of feel like you need a bigger dresser. I have bras in my top drawer, then socks, then t-shirts rolled, then pajama/ exercise pants, then shorts/ swimsuits.
My closet is Elfa. I already had built in cubbies, so I left them and built the Elfa around them. 6 cubbies to the left side, sweaters/ seasonal etc. A bottom shelf for shoes.
A hanger for shirt level and underneath 4 drawers for additional sweaters/ sweatshirts/ cardigans. The other hanging side is dresses and dressy pants. I have 2 shelves above everything that I have jeans on.
In my closet, hanging on the rack from left to right: work pants, skirts, work tops, casual tops, cardigans/jackets, dresses
ETA: On the shelf above the rack, I have sweaters/sweatshirts, grubby clothes, and purses. My shoes are in an over-the-door hanging organizer.
I have a 9-drawer dresser: top: underwear, tights, bras middle: socks, random undergarments, workout gear bottom: jeans/shorts, tank tops/swimwear, pajamas
The thing that has made the biggest improvement in organization is cutting my wardrobe in half.
Post by expectantsteelerfan on Apr 22, 2021 13:49:21 GMT -5
Our closet is tiny, so I use the guest bedroom closet for dresses and off-season tops (that I rotate and hate doing this). I have 2 full dressers and then one of those cube things with fabric boxes (I keep bathing suits, bras, sports bras, socks, belts, and cardis that don't get wrinkled in the fabric bins). But I still feel like my pj drawers, workout clothes drawers, jeans/shorts drawers, and even my underwear drawers are full to the brim and such a pain to close. I think often that I need less clothes, but I really do wear all the stuff in all the drawers. And dh has a dresser too, so we have 3 dressers in our bedroom!
We are house hunting, and although all the houses do have bigger closets, the master bedrooms are usually staged with a bed, 2 bedside tables, 1 dresser, and a mirror and chair or something. I love the look of all that open space, but I still don't think all my stuff is actually going to fit in bigger closet. I guess I should be looking at closets that not only have MORE hanging room, but also a ton of drawers. One house had closets big enough that there were dressers in the closets, so that would work too.
I have a small bi-fold door closet with one rod. All hanging items are tops or dresses and are sorted by type of top and then in ROYGBIV order within the type. lol So there will be short sleeves in ROYGBIV order, followed by long sleeve, etc.
Sweatshirts live on the shelf above the hanging rod. And all other clothes are in a dresser with the drawers just sorted by type of clothes (i.e. bras/underwear/socks in one, t-shirts and pj sets in another, lounge/workout pants, jeans/real pants).
H and I each only have 50 pieces of clothing to hang. We have an 8x8 foot walk in closet. So the clothes are hung in one small corner, and a ridiculous amount of crap that I’ve been putting off dealing with occupies the other 90% of the space. We moved just a month before the pandemic shut everything down, so I haven’t filed, or sorted clothes for Goodwill, or unpacked some random stuff for that whole year.
I hope, once the kids start school four days a week next week, I’ll finally clear all this out, dismantle the closet system on one side, and create a home office for me and H.
Mine is pretty well organized. We have a weird bit big closet. We turned a room that used to be a nursery (100+ year old house, so basically a small bedroom attached to the master bedroom) into a closet using a California closet type system. So it has two “regular” closets with doors in there, plus then we added in all the closet built ins. So we have a lot of different “areas”. DH has one closet and I basically have everything else. I organize the hanging sections by: long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, hanging sweaters, jackets, short dresses, maxi dresses, and then a section for special occasion clothes. Within those sections I organize by color.
In drawers or shelves I keep pants, folding sweaters, workout clothes, swimsuits, and bags. There is a separate shoe closet that I organize by shoe type.
Then we have a dresser in our main bedroom that hold pjs, underwear, socks for both of us . I have no idea why we originally separated these things out but it works lol.
I keep off season items in vacuum bags in the guest room closet.
Post by Velar Fricative on Apr 22, 2021 14:55:22 GMT -5
DH and I both have our own reach-in closets and our own dressers outside of the closets. I fold most clothes, so I actually have a lot of room left in my small closet and it's pretty well organized, but mostly because I did it while we were hunkered down at home this past winter. It helps to not own what I think are that many clothes or shoes. Clothes on hangers are organized by type - sweatshirts, jackets, dresses, etc. so I know that if I need to get a dress, I know what part of the closet it's in.
Post by UMaineTeach on Apr 22, 2021 14:59:44 GMT -5
Um, sometimes the tops are hung by sleeve length? And the jeans are sorted into skinny and bootcut. Work pants in a separate pile. The rest is like an explosion at a garment factory.
My closet is so full of clothes that don’t fit, old “event” t-shirts, and shoes I will never wear again. It all needs to go, but I don’t know where it needs to go to, so I don’t dare drag it all out until I have a plan. I waffle among donate it all, try to sell it, or burn it on the front lawn.
Our closet IMO is plenty big for the 2 of us. It's a walk-in, U shape.
Right side is tall hanging, mostly my dresses, work pants, and then DH's suits. DH's jeans and sweaters on 2 shelves above rod. Middle is my jewelry station on top, with shelves below. I have my jeans and sweaters on those shelves. Left side is a double rod, DH's shirts on top, mine on bottom. Above that is our overnight bags and my handbags.
I sort my shirts by sleeve length and color. So tanks, short sleeve, long sleeve.
Underwear, socks, PJs, workout stuff, shorts are all in our dressers. I have a 6 drawer and DH has a 5 drawer tall chest.
Post by NewGirlNic on Apr 22, 2021 15:15:28 GMT -5
No, I have the smallest closet, ever. All the bedrooms do. I use half of DS closet to hang things like dresses, rompers and special occasion items that I don't wear often.
H uses half of the spare room closet for his suits, dress pants etc.
I recently switched out all our hangers to the thin velvet wrapped kind. It made a huge difference in how much room we have now. And H's stuff is on black ones, mine on light grey, so it's easy to see where each of our side of the rack starts.
We really don’t have closets in our house. We have a small bedroom and we use it as a “closet” with rolling garment racks. We basically hang everything up.
I kind of feel like you need a bigger dresser. I have bras in my top drawer, then socks, then t-shirts rolled, then pajama/ exercise pants, then shorts/ swimsuits.
My closet is Elfa. I already had built in cubbies, so I left them and built the Elfa around them. 6 cubbies to the left side, sweaters/ seasonal etc. A bottom shelf for shoes.
A hanger for shirt level and underneath 4 drawers for additional sweaters/ sweatshirts/ cardigans. The other hanging side is dresses and dressy pants. I have 2 shelves above everything that I have jeans on.
I could definitely use a bigger dresser, but the one I have is a beautiful shaker antique (from my mom's childhood bedroom) that I've had my whole life. I don't even have room for a bigger one. I could possibly find room for another, smaller chest of drawers.
It just occurred to me that I could clean out my bed storage (drawers underneath) and use those for bathing suits and off-season items.
It's a mess but every time I stare at it and try to figure out how to rearrange, I get overwhelmed.
What part specifically is a mess?
For me, your t-shirts in the hanging organizer and the sweaters on the shelf would be chaos. I can't do folded things stacked on top of each other - jeans are the exception, probably because due to the material they don't slide around. My folded things need to be Marie Kondo-style folded in drawers or bins/baskets (like this). I don't know how your workout clothes are organized in the bins, but mine are in drawers folded like the picture, one drawer for leggings/shorts and one drawer for tops.
Coordinating bins will make things look more cohesive too. I just switch out some see-through plastic bins for prettier fabric boxes, and even though the functionality is the same, it looks a lot "calmer" now.
Post by rootbeerfloat on Apr 22, 2021 16:10:57 GMT -5
I have a standard closet with sliding doors with a single rod. From L-R, it goes dresses (ROYGBIV), tops (also ROYGBIV), pants, skirts, hoodies/jackets, plus a shoe hanger with sandals, heels, and work flats that I hardly wear.
On the floor, I keep boots and sneakers, plus a few bags of random items like Halloween costumes. Everyday shoes are in the garage.
On the shelf above the rod, I store my boxed wedding dress, bin of sweaters/sweatshirts, and bags nested in each other. I live in a warm climate, so sweaters and jackets are mainly for travel.
It's a mess but every time I stare at it and try to figure out how to rearrange, I get overwhelmed.
What part specifically is a mess?
For me, your t-shirts in the hanging organizer and the sweaters on the shelf would be chaos. I can't do folded things stacked on top of each other - jeans are the exception, probably because due to the material they don't slide around. My folded things need to be Marie Kondo-style folded in drawers or bins/baskets (like this). I don't know how your workout clothes are organized in the bins, but mine are in drawers folded like the picture, one drawer for leggings/shorts and one drawer for tops.
Coordinating bins will make things look more cohesive too. I just switch out some see-through plastic bins for prettier fabric boxes, and even though the functionality is the same, it looks a lot "calmer" now.
You basically described my mess. LOL. I have too many sweaters that are folded and stacked. Jeans -- too many pairs, because I recently lost weight and in search of "the perfect" pair. Then pants are folded and stacked, too.
My workout clothes are in stacked bins with a lip and an open front. So I wear something (often workout 2 x per day so they get a lot of use), wash and fold it, and it gets put right back in front.
I am definitely going to play with my under-bed storage this weekend. It's easy to get to and will open up a lot of space.
ETA: Most of the responses are from organized people, so I will not expose details about my inferior closet storage. I will simply say, if anyone is feeling discouraged, please trust you are doing better than I.
Post by MixedBerryJam on Apr 22, 2021 18:43:38 GMT -5
I recently moved And seriously downsized in the process. I love my new closet — I’ve never had a walk-in before. And I’ve never had an organized closet! I have 3 having areas: cool weather dresses on the left, summer dresses on the right. Then, the section next to winter dresses is 2-level hanging: blouses above (long sleeve on the left, short sleeve on the right , and skirts and skorts below. Shoes bottom, left. Right hand side of the summer dresses wall is built in drawers that top to bottom are: hair, pain and medicine, empty waiting for a new category to fill it with, and purses. High shelves at holiday-related, low shelves are towels.
My closet also has a small lazy Susan for ... shall I go on?
We really don’t have closets in our house. We have a small bedroom and we use it as a “closet” with rolling garment racks. We basically hang everything up.
We did the exact same thing, and I am spoiled for life lol! We each got 2 nice garment rack/shelf combo units from ikea, and in the middle of the room we have 2 dressers back to back. The tops of the dressers are used for folding laundry & my jewelry.
Post by cricketwife on Apr 22, 2021 19:10:32 GMT -5
Maybe I’m just justifying myself here, but I do think you may just not have enough space. Our closets are as organized as possible, but they are CRAMMED. H uses the closet in our bedroom (1940s house so it’s like the width of a door, basically. DS also has a small closet like that in his room, which I use for his clothes and for the family suitcase and some linens. In DS2’s room is a closet similar to the standard sliding door closet, only it has bifold doors. In it I have my clothes, DS2 clothes, my shoes and both the boys’ shoes, photo albums, kids artwork, sleeping bags....and more. I mean, it is PACKED, but I don’t really have any other options. I “organize” by using lots of boxes and keeping like items together. It for want of space, I’d never use the word “organized” to describe it.
My closet fell off the wall a few weeks ago and every weekend I’m working on the new version. DH & I share a walk-in with parallel rods on either side. I did a DIY system with random pieces to arrange it the way I wanted it and that worked for 11 years, until it all fell apart last month! I drew a diagram of what I had and went to the hardware store to figure out how to rebuild it. I bought a Rubbermaid fast track system and I’m adapting.
I prefer to hang as much as possible and use my dresser for more rarely used items- bulkier sweaters, special occasion accessories, things like that. I have a double rod with t-shirts on the bottom, pants on top. I have a 3 shelf organizer that holds socks, underwear, and bras in baskets. Shoes are in their boxes along the top, with my most worn shoes in a shoe cubby on our first floor. Then, I have all of my long sleeve shirts hanging on the rest of the pants rod. I have a wire basket drawer unit on the end for Pjs, bathing suits, and tank tops. I use a few feet on DH’s side for (rarely worn) dresses. ETA: I’ve donated 2 boxes of clothes since I started this. I’ve also tried to be very honest with myself about what I really wear/need. I only use the velvet slim hangers. I DO have random piles of crap all over my bedroom as I continue to weed through the contents.
Post by ellipses84 on Apr 22, 2021 21:18:32 GMT -5
I took a pic for you. This might be the most organized part of my house and to be fair, I have a dresser and use my office closet for some overflow. I use the plastic bins on the top shelves of all our closets for out of season clothes, etc. (I need an extra for the purses on the right). The top shelf of the shoe rack can be used for folded sweaters. To the left of that I have another clear bin and more purses but there’s enough length to hang dresses (long maxis I loop over the hanger). There’s a hanging jewelry organizer and a scarf hanger on the rod. There’s a hook in the wall on each side off all of our closets which is great for robes or jackets. At the beginning of the year I put all hangers in backwards and flip them around as I wear stuff so I can see what to get rid of at the end of the year.