Home Organizing and Staging Solutions Madison, WI Metro Area
608.622.SORT (7678)
info@lifeorganizedllc.com
  • Life: Organized
  • Organizing & Staging
    • FAQ Videos
    • Before & After
    • Testimonials
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Dane County Hoarding Task Force
  • Contact us!

Closet Organization 101

1/18/2013

0 Comments

 
When is the last time you honestly cleaned out your closet? I am not talking about sweeping or vacuuming, I am talking about purging. Honest to goodness, asking yourself the tough questions, getting rid of shirts from high-school...purging.

Last week? Last year? When you moved five or ten years ago? Never?

Be honest with yourself, it is probably time, right? All too often I hear that people are afraid to start because it is such a big job, and it can be. I will try to help you break it down into a few smaller steps if you do not have the time to dedicate several hours at a time. So, here goes..

  1. Put yourself on a shopping diet...do not buy anything new until you have a better idea of your current inventory. Chances are, you will discover a few items that need to be replaced as you work through your closet. Maybe that is your reward at the end?

  2. Do some quick sorting. Take a pass through your closet and pull out anything that you know you want to get rid of. Too small, too big, soiled, torn, out dated, not your style? Let it go. It will make your job a lot easier in the following steps!

  3. Next, identify categories in your closet. They might include...

    Long sleeve tops
    Short sleeve tops
    Sweaters
    Slacks
    Dresses
    Skirts
    Handbags
    Scarves
    Belts
    Shoes

  4. Choose a category and tackle it! For example, take all of your sweaters out of your closet, dresser, cedar chest, etc and put them all in one place. Sort like sweaters together by style and color. Now if you are looking at your collection and find an abundance of grey cable knit sweaters for example, decide which ones you like the best, look nice on you, get worn often and let the rest that you do not love and wear go. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself the last time you wore it and if it has been a while, why? Remember we want to purge, not just organize your stuff and put it back. Maybe that is all the organizing you can do for one day, and that is fine. Find a way to put the sweaters away neatly.

  5. Each opportunity you schedule time to work in the closet, choose a different category. Before you know it, you will have made it through them all.

  6. Do not go out and buy baskets, totes, hangers, etc until you have sorted through everything and know what you actually need...not what you think you need!

  7. Once you have gone through your entire list of categories, you can look at your wardrobe and the way you store it in a new way. One example in the closet below is the use of the hanging canvas shelves, it previously stored handbags. This was not the best place for the handbags though, considering the prime location and the frequency of accessing the bags. It made more sense to repurpose those shelves for seasonal storage. Right now, they house sweaters. When sweater season is over, they can store summer tanks and tops that do not hang well. This left the handbags homeless, so we moved them up to a less convenient shelf but still very accessible.

  8. What to do with the items you are not keeping? That may be a different answer for everyone. Some people will simply donate the items to their favorite nonprofit. Others might like to try and recuperate some of their cash and have a garage sale or find a consignment store. What ever you decide, remember that your time is valuable and so is your storage space.

Remember with all your organizing projects, set goals and time limits for yourself. Maybe you want to reduce your closet by 30% and work on it one hour per week until it is completed. If you need to give yourself a reward, hey, who am I to judge! I don't want organizing to be painful for you, quite the contrary, I enjoy it and hope that some day you will too ;-) In the mean time, give me a call if you get stuck...literally or figuratively.



BEFORE
Picture
Picture
AFTER
Picture
Picture
This closet took about three hours and was reduced by close to half!!!  Nice work ;-)
We added a few inexpensive tap lights to the inside of the closet and an over the door hanger to organize scarves. 
Visit Life: Organized. An evolution of sorts. LLC's profile on Pinterest.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Do you like what you see?Sign up for a monthly newsletter and never miss a beat!
    Sign Up Now
    For Email Newsletters you can trust.

    Claire

    Professional Organizer at your service...

    Archives

    July 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Accessories
    ADD/ADHD
    Articles/Print
    Assessment
    Back To School
    Basement
    Bathroom
    Before/After Pics
    Book Review
    Books
    Business
    Business Cards
    Buy Local
    CD (Chronic Disorganization)
    Chores
    Cleaning
    Closet Organizing
    Clutter
    Consumer Protection
    Contact Management
    Crafts
    Customer Appreciation
    Customer Satisfaction
    Define Spaces
    Document Retention
    Downsizing
    Education
    Entryway And Mud Rooms
    Events
    Exterior Staging
    Fall
    Family
    Fema
    Feng Shui
    Garage/Attic/Basement
    Go Month
    Hoarding
    Holidays
    Home Inventory
    ICD (institute For Challenging Disorganization)
    Jewelry
    Kids
    Kitchen
    Leftovers
    Marketing
    Meals
    Medicare
    Minimalism
    NAPO (National Association Of Professional Organizers)
    Newsletter
    Now Hiring
    OCD
    Office Organization
    Organzing
    Paper Managemnet
    Photos
    Pin Of The Week
    Planning
    Product Review
    Professional Affiliations
    Publications
    Purging
    Recipe
    Recycle
    Referral
    Repurposeupcyclea65a84bf65
    Resolutions
    Safety
    Seniors
    Services
    Shredding
    Specials0077ccba0b
    Staging
    St Vincent Depaul
    Support Group
    Support-groups
    Therapy
    Tickler
    Time Management
    Virtual-organizing
    Volunteer

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from tristanf, emily @ go haus go, GranitArchitects, Brendon Burton, BradPerkins, eflon, Alan Light, quinn.anya, tsayrate, ...love Maegan, erix!, pjohnkeane, .Robert., queenbeeofbeverlyhills, StockMonkeys.com, Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar, PixFav.com, John-Morgan, Nguyen Vu Hung (vuhung), donebythehandsofabrokenartist, jeffdjevdet, Tom Purves, VinothChandar, Dude Pascalou, TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋), Rance Costa, Jagz Mario, kikfoto, quietlyurban.com, kevin dooley, denisp12