How to Organize a Closet: Tips for Decluttering and Maximizing Closet Space

Has your closet become, despite your best intentions, a cluttered mess that swallows your favorite shirts, shoes and sweaters? If so, you're certainly not alone in struggling with closet chaos.

Here are some small space organization ideas for closets that will help you find extra prep time on busy weekday mornings, preserve the integrity of your clothing and allow you to easily see everything.

How to Declutter the Closet

Step 1: Remove Everything from Your Closet

Carefully remove all the clothing, shoes and other items from your closet. Lay them down on a clean surface like your bed or a painter's sheet on the floor.

Step 2: Sort Your Clothing

Organizer Monica Ricci recommends sorting items one at a time into piles based on the following criteria:

• Love It: You wear it faithfully and like how it looks on you. Set aside the clothes in this pile and keep them.
• Like It: You wear it fairly often. It's also a key player in a few outfits. Set aside the clothes in this pile and keep them.
• Hate It: You never wear it because it doesn't fit or you bought it because it was a bargain. Package everything in the Hate It pile for charity or resale.
• Undecided: This is the pile for things you want to get rid of but are holding onto because they were gifts or were expensive purchases. Sort the Undecided pile piece-by-piece and separate the items based on Love It, Like It or Hate It. Decide what each piece currently means to you, not what it meant to you years ago. Be ruthless. Beware of the piece of clothing that cost a ton of money when it was new. The fact that it's in the Undecided pile means you haven't had it on recently or you're iffy on when you're going to wear it next.

Step 3: Get Rid of Clothes

Once you've sorted everything, it's time to pare down. Take the cast offs from the Hate It and Undecided piles and get them out of the house.

Throw Away: Toss any clothes that are soiled or torn beyond repair.

Donate or Sell: Call your local consignment store for guidelines on resale and how the profit will be split — 50/50 is ideal. Also, ask what happens to your clothes if they don't sell; most consignment stores will donate anything that doesn't sell within a certain period of time to a shelter or nonprofit organization. Higher ticket items can be sold on sites like Poshmark or TheRealReal. And you can post clothes you want to give away and get rid of quickly on a local Buy Nothing group.

Step 4: Choose the Best Closet Organizer

After you purge your closet and before you hang everything back in your closet, evaluate the interior and determine your storage options. According to organizer Candita Clayton, one of the most common blunders — besides stuffing your closet with items you don't wear — is the lack of hanging bars and shelves and inadequate storage for specific items like accessories and shoes. Candita's first rule for a functional closet is creating flexible hanging space with adjustable poles and shelves that can accommodate a variety of pieces.

Inventory Your Clothing:

• short-hanging pieces (like blouses)
• long-hanging pieces (like dresses)
• shoes
• handbags
• folded clothing (like sweaters)
• accessories (like belts)

Find a Storage System for Your Needs: With these numbers, figure out what will suit your clothing storage best. If the majority of your items are on hangers, then be sure to incorporate rods at different levels for short-, medium- and long-hanging items. Install shelves or small cubbies for shoes and handbags, and incorporate hooks for belts, scarves and jewelry. There are a number of great pre-fab options available to help customize your closet.

Step 5: Create a Personal Lookbook

This step is optional, but it's a step that many personal stylists take for clients. While all of your clothes are pulled out of the closet, they'll be broken out of the normal ways you view them and assemble outfits. Lay out different outfits on the floor (including clothing, shoes, outer layers and accessories) and take a photo of each outfit. Feel free to combine the same item in different outfits. Then print out the pages and put them together in a booklet for you to reference when time is tight. It'll make you feel like you have "more things to wear."

Step 6: Arrange Your Clothes In the Closet

Consider arranging your clothes within your closet based on the following groupings:

• Color
• Event (casual, work, formal)
• Type (shirts, pants, shorts)
• Complete outfits (with jewelry and shoes, too!)

How to Maximize Closet Space

Choose Thin Hangers: Instead of basic white plastic hangers that take up space, go for thin, streamlined non-slip hangers in great hues to inject color into your closet.

Deck Out the Back of Your Doors: Add hooks to keep your scarves, backpacks and jackets in place, or you could hang an over-the-door organizer for shoes or jewelry. Even if you have an unusual item to store, think about how you could use that extra vertical space to grab even more real estate.

Hang Your Storage Containers: If you have a limited budget or live in a rental that doesn't allow you to make any structural changes, try using storage containers that can be hung from an existing clothing rod. There are many products available that will keep your jewelry, clothes, shoes and sporting equipment organized and off the floor.

Install storage from floor to ceiling: Even if the ceiling is too tall for you to reach, high up storage space is great for infrequently used, seasonal items. Stash a folding step stool in the back of your closet or install a more permanent, tasteful ladder.

Opt for adjustable dividers: Opt for storage solutions with shelves and poles that can be moved up and down to accommodate a closet that changes over time.

Buy additional bins and containers: Buy storage baskets to sort items on a top closet shelf. Put accessories into trays. If you have a large sunglasses collection, invest in a specialized storage container. Think about the way retail stores lay out their accessories and borrow some tips for your own closet.

Remove Your Closet Doors: One way to immediately get a bit of extra space is to remove the doors on your reach-in closet. Once the doors are off, you can choose to leave the closet open or install simple-yet-stylish curtains. Removing the doors will also allow you to store bulkier items or bring in storage furniture that might not typically fit inside closet doors, like a dresser or shoe rack.

Add a Dresser: Here's another easy upgrade for your closet: bring in a dresser. Because compact dressers from places like IKEA fit inside most closets, you can enjoy more storage without having to make any other physical changes to the space. This is a great option, too, if you have a dresser that you don’t love the look of but still want to use.

Decorate With Dual-Purpose Pieces: Now that you’ve customized the inside of your closet, think through the rest of your space to ensure that you're using all available real estate. For example, if you have any items or collections that you don’t mind putting on display, use art and decor to move those things out of your closet and onto the walls. Faux-animal heads would make a fun addition to a kid's room and could be used to hold backpacks and raincoats.

How to Organize Other Types of Closets

Organize the Linen Closet

Are your sheets and towels a jumbled mess? Professional organizer Pam Hix has 10 tips to help you get your linen closet stocked, straightened and organized.

TOWELS:

• Decorate the bathroom with towels: If linen storage space is limited, decorate the bathroom with towels. Hand towels and face cloths can be rolled and stored in wicker baskets or layered on a shelf in the bathroom.
• Store towels edge folded side out: Stacking towels with folded sides out, like they are displayed in stores, will make it easy to remove the towels one at a time. When towel edges face out, it's tough to grab just one.

SHEETS:

• Slip sheet sets inside their coordinating pillowcases: It keeps the closet neater and saves time when making beds because there's no need to go through a mess of odd sheets. Put a lavender sachet in with the linens to keep them smelling fresh while stored.
• Store sheets in their bedrooms: Keep two sets of sheets for each bed — one for the bed, another for backup. Store bed linens in the bedroom where they are used. They can be stored on a shelf or even tucked between the mattress and box spring.
• Store seldom-used linens folded wrong side out: This prevents dust from showing on the crease line. Little-used linens should also be stored away from the linen area that is used daily. It does not make sense to use a valuable storage area for something that is not used often.
• Rotate linens: When putting away fresh linens, be sure to rotate them so that one set does not get more worn than another. Put the newly washed towels and sheets on the bottom, and always work from the top.
• Store seasonal sheets in the attic: Linens with a holiday or seasonal theme, such as flannel sheets, should not be stored in a linen area during the offseason. They can easily be boxed up and stored in the basement, attic or even under the bed.

OTHER ITEMS:

• Hang tablecloths: Try hanging tablecloths on towel racks mounted on the back of the linen closet door to save space.
• Corral toilet paper and extra toiletries: Keep toilet paper on the floor under the lowest shelf. Keep extra soaps, shampoos, toothpaste and other items in a basket on the floor next to the paper. They can be placed in bins and categorized, according to use, then labeled. Keep any items that are hazardous to children out of these low areas.

Organize the Art Supplies Closet

Whether it's your scrapbooking supplies or the kids' paper and markers, art supplies tend to clutter up a closet faster than you can complete a project. Whether you have a walk-in closet with room for seating or a closet with just a few shelves, you can still create order out of art-supply chaos. Professional organizer Charlotte Steill shares her top five storage solutions:

1. Rolling carts: These can be tucked under a shelf or work surface for easy accessibility and are ideal for storing items you don't use every day.
2. Magnetic spice racks: These small, round containers come with clear lids so it's easy to see what's inside.
3. Magnetic baskets: Small paint bottles, paintbrushes, crayons, markers and colored pencils are easily identifiable and moved about if you have an easel or separate area for drawing and painting.
4. Small compartment boxes: The compartments are great for keeping up with buttons, beads, shells and rubber stamps.
5. Expanding files: The individual files allow you to easily sort scrapbooking and decoupage supplies into categories, either by person, holiday or event.