While the thought of a neatly organized closet brings joy to many hearts, actually organizing the closet is another story. Many people often feel overwhelmed and aren’t sure how to start the process because each closet’s layout and storage purposes are different. How should you organize your closet if it’s a walk-in? What if it’s deep but narrow? What if it’s wide but doesn’t have much storage inside? Your closet is probably where you keep the most personal belongings, so it’s important to get it right! Here are three key factors to maximizing your closet space.

Declutter Your Closet

The first step to organizing any space is to take everything out and sort through all the items you’re giving away and the items you’re keeping. By now, you’ve probably heard of the classic quote from Marie Kondo, “Does it spark joy?”.

While it can be a great rule of thumb for some indecisive people going through their cluttered spaces, it can be a not-so-great piece of advice for people who have a harder time letting go of things, like sentimental dresses or old shoes. Perhaps another thought that you should consider is, “If you haven’t worn it in a year, you should probably get rid of it.” 

However, this rule isn’t without its challenges. It can be hard to let go of your items, even for the things you don’t wear anymore. You might have some thoughts that sound like,

“Yeah, I don’t wear it anymore, but what if I need it one day?”

Thoughts like this are entirely normal, but they’re not helpful for you in the long run. The odds are that the “one day” you’re thinking about won’t come, so it’s often best to simply give that piece of clothing away so that someone else can put it to good use.

Once you declutter your space and figure out all the items you’re keeping, then you can finally think about organizing!

Assess Your Space

To get the most out of your space, you have to properly assess it and determine which organizational layout fits the most items in the most convenient way. A common misconception about home organization is that all you need are some pretty containers with labels, and you’re good to go. While these are important aspects to what our team at Organized with Grace does, it’s not what actually maximizes space and organizes it in a way that will keep your area organized for years to come.

When assessing your space, get out that measuring tape and numerically determine how much space you have. This makes sure that no cracks and crevices of space go unused. In addition, you’ll need to figure out a system for your closet that will help you avoid the problems you probably keep running into: Piles of clothes, cluttered dressers, not being able to find specific items, etc.

This assessment part is indeed time-consuming and may not be something you feel comfortable doing by yourself. That’s what we’re here to help you with at Organized with Grace! A bedroom organization hack for assessing your space is to think of how you want the final product of your closet to look, such as which items you would like to be front and center. This will give you a baseline to work off of so you know where to start when taking on this project.

If your closet is long and narrow, the top of your closet is likely the hardest to reach, so one of our bedroom organization hacks is to place seasonal items or items that you only wear for special occasions in those hard-to-reach spots. The place in your closet that is easiest to reach for should have your everyday items.

A popular closet design for long and narrow spaces is a narrow but deep shelving unit for shoes to place in the middle of your closet, allowing you to put clothing racks on both sides of the shelves. This makes it easy to grab your shoes and head on out! In addition, you can maximize space with double clothing racks.

Adding more hanging space can be more efficient for your space than adding more shelves. Our team can help you decide if this is the right decision for your closet and your particular clothing items, as some fabrics should be hung while some should be folded.

Get Organized!

Once you have a game plan, go and get to organizing! Depending on the size of your space and the number of items you have, this may be a full-day project. Our team at Organized with Grace is ready to help you with anything you need, whether it’s ideas relating to design and visual aspects of your space or the more technical and mathematical side of it.

For more bedroom organization hacks, keep up with our blog and follow us on social media! Request your free consultation today right on our website.