How We Organize Our Master Closet

We’re FINALLY all moved into our new master bedroom — and more importantly, into our new master closet!

It feels SO great to have all our clothes organized and all in one place again — and it also gave Dave and me a great excuse to purge a few things we haven’t worn in awhile!

As I mentioned last week, I’m starting a mini series on “Clothes Clutter” as it seems to be such a huge problem for all of my clients — and thanks to the feedback I got on Facebook — it seems to be a major issue for many of you as well!

A Peek Inside Our Closet

I figured that a perfect way to “kick off” the Clothes Clutter series would be to take you on a tour of our closet. It’s just a normal reach-in closet — not a fancy {or large} walk-in closet, and we don’t keep clothing in any other closet in our entire house.

So beside the socks, undies, t-shirts, and PJ’s that we keep in dresser drawers {I’ll show you those on another day!} our closet contains ALL our clothes — even all the maternity clothes I’m borrowing right now.

Now obviously, we have A LOT of stuff in our closet, but thanks to our REALLY awesome closet system that was designed and installed by ORG West Michigan, we were able to fully maximize every square inch of our limited space {and even make room to accommodate a TV for Dave}!!

QUICK TIP: even the smallest closets can fit SO much more inside if you have a well-designed closet. Just take our extremely small nursery closet for an example.

 

Ok, so let me take you on a full tour {you may want to keep referring back to the photo above so you can get the full picture}

Short Hang

We have two 40″ rods of short hang on the left side of our closet {I actually measured how many short-hang clothes we had, so I knew they would fit}. Dave gets the top rod and I get the bottom rod.

There is also one shelf above Dave’s clothes that I use for all my purses and any bags we have.

Oh, and I would highly recommend the thin, velvet hangers {I got mine free after rebate from Menard’s!} because they take up way less space and your clothes will never slip off and fall to the floor.

 

Long Hang

We share 36″ of long-hang space on the right side of the closet {yes, I measured that out too}. We keep all our dress pants, my dresses, and some longer skirts in this section.

Dave has two shelves above the long hang that he uses for jeans, sweaters, sweatshirts, and other athletic clothes. He also has space under the long hang for his shoe shelves.

Shelves

We made sure to leave plenty of room for shelves since both of us like to fold all our sweaters, sweatshirts, pants, t-shirts, etc. We also installed a cable outlet and electrical plug towards the top of our shelves so we could put a TV in our closet {I figured Dave deserved it!}

We made the center bank of shelves 22″ wide — partially to accommodate a flat panel TV {eventually}, and partially because a stack of pants usually takes up 11″ so I can easily fit 2 stacks of pants and 3 stacks of shirts because of the way I fold them.

I also found some great baskets from World Market that fit perfectly inside our shelves. I use one for scarves, belts, leggings, etc. and one for shoes.

QUICK TIP: I know some people think drawers are the coolest thing to put in a closet, but to be honest, drawers take up more room and offer less storage space than simple shelves. So unless you have a massive closet, I would definitely recommend shelves over drawers.

Here’s a closer look at how I set up some of my shelves. You can find the shelf dividers I purchased here.

 

Shoes

Shoes seem to be a huge problem for most people — and I’ll be honest — it’s most likely because you have WAY too many pairs! I know this because I was once a person with too many shoes, and then I realized I didn’t need that many shoes — just a few basic pairs.

Besides our winter snow boots that stay by the back door, we keep ALL our shoes at the bottom of our closet! Dave has ginormous shoes, so he get the shelving unit — I keep all my shoes in one of the baskets from World Market. I also have two pairs of dressy boots that I keep right next to the basket and one pair of tennis shoes that I keep on Dave’s shelf.

Accessories:

I saved the best for last! accessories are another HUGE clothes clutter issue for most people {especially women!}

Since they seems to be such a large problem, I’ll actually be doing a full post just on accessories — so I won’t go into tons of detail today.

Most of my accessories aren’t even in our closet. I keep all my jewelry, socks, underwear, tank tops, t-shirts, athletic gear, pajamas, etc in my dresser {which I’ll show you later}. I keep my purses on the top shelf and I keep my scarves, leggings, and belts in one of the baskets on our shelves.

I am also planning to install hooks on the inside of our closet door for Dave’s belts and ties, but other than that, we don’t have many accessories.

 

So that’s how we organize our clothes

And no, I honestly did NOT remove any clothes to make it look less crowded. This is what our closet really looks like all the time — yes, I know I’m lucky to have a husband who actually keeps it looking nice too!

Oh, and in case you never saw how horrible the master closets were when we first moved in — this picture should help you see how far we’ve come!

YIKES!!!

So if you could design the closet of your dreams, what features would you include? What would help YOU better organize your clothes clutter?

And if you’re looking for a great closet design, I would highly suggestion contacting ORG West Michigan, they do amazing work!