Tips for organizing closets

13 Foolproof Closet Organization Ideas For Any Wardrobe

What’s scarier than a closet bogeyman? A closet clutterbug, of course! If your bedroom wardrobe is feeling extra spooky these days, look to these foolproof closet organization tips to create a clean, stylish, and functional haven for your clothes and accessories. Everything you need to get started is below.

Did you know? Decluttering is step one when organizing any part of your home. You can use a PODS portable storage container as a dedicated sorting space while you decide what stays and what goes!

But first, we know what you’re wondering: What is the best way to organize my closet?

The answer? What works best for you. Successful closet organization typically goes like this: Get rid of clutter, build or install your chosen compartments or shelving, and create a specific space for each type of clothing and accessory. Like any organization project, the goal is to create a personalized but repeatable system that you can maintain over time.

Here are 10 clever organization tips from vlogger Shea Whitney to inspire you:

Okay, so how can I organize my small closet?

A tiny closet only needs a few upgrades to feel a thousand times more functional. For best results, focus on three main organization tips for small spaces: efficient folding methods, utilization of previously unused space, and dedicated sections for certain items. (And hey, a biannual purge doesn’t hurt, either.) Additional small closet organization ideas are covered below.

And how do I organize my closet on a low budget?

You really don’t need to spend big bucks to make a functional closet. In fact, for a zero-cost closet upgrade, start by only revamping your organizing methods. This means downsizing your wardrobe, rotating seasonal clothing, and using specialized folding and stacking methods — all tasks you can easily turn into long-term habits at no charge to you.

If you’re okay spending a little cash on closet organization, start by shopping for affordable bins or baskets and easy-to-assemble closet systems with simple designs. A few soft boxes, rack dividers, and damage-free hooks won’t run you more than $100, for example. From there, you can DIY all kinds of closet organizers just by repurposing common household items outlined below.

Now, onto our closet organization ideas.

1. Start With a Good Purge

The key to any home organization project is to downsize and declutter first. Think of it like pre-organizing for your organizing: You cut down on items you have to find spots for, free up new space for more important items, and help put yourself in a new Zen-like state of mind for moving forward.

Here are a few ways to gain closet space and reduce clutter:

Tackle big real-estate items first. If you have better space elsewhere, move stuff like vacuums, camping gear, and large suitcases to a guest bedroom, basement, hallway closet, or garage.
Make three piles labeled “Keep,” “Donate,” and “Toss” to sort your existing closet items.
Donate clothes, jewelry, and other accessories you haven’t worn in six months, and toss damaged or unusable items.
For “Keep” items, divide further by seasonality. Unless you’re in the thick of fall festivities, Halloween costumes and winter gear will go elsewhere, for example.

2. Utilize Other Space in Your Home

It’s easy to assume a bedroom closet is your only option for storing clothes and shoes — and to forget how convenient it might be to utilize an office or guest room as a walk-in closet. Take a look at all available space and shelving in your home to assess your closet potential. Are you actually using your whole office for work, or could one of its corners be repurposed as a wardrobe? Would your bedroom feel more clean and relaxing if you took out your dresser and clothes rack?

3.

Use Storage to Declutter or Move Items Out of the House

Tackling a big declutter or organization project? You might need to upgrade your storage arsenal. Treat yourself to a portable storage container to help sort and access items. It’s like having a magic closet catch-all right in your driveway! And the best part? Storage containers can be delivered and picked up on your schedule, so you don’t have to be in any rush to make decisions.

4. Put a Dresser Below Your Hanging Items

A simple yet effective upgrade to any closet (especially a small one) is to place a dresser under your hanging items. This frees up space in your bedroom and makes a quick upgrade to your divider and storage options. It also doesn’t require installation like other closet systems; just place it where you want it and add your stuff!

5. Get an Additional Clothes Rack

If you’re working with a super small space or no closet at all, consider investing in a clothes rack. A tall closet system can be placed neatly in a corner of your bedroom or studio, while a shorter design helps to double up your existing closet space.

6. Use Dividers to Create Zones

Whether yours is an itty-bitty bedroom closet or Mariah Carey–style walk-in, look to closet dividers as a cheap and versatile way to organize your clothes and accessories. As you purchase or collect these containers, rack tags, and shelf dividers, consider methods for choosing what to place in each closet zone:

Divide items by type, such as jeans, sweaters, and dresses.
Arrange items based on height and bulkiness: Tops go on lower racks or shorter shelves, pants go on a hook rack or mid-level shelf, and long dresses and bulky coats go on higher racks and spacious shelving.
If you’re a visual organizer, subdivide items by color (in rainbow order, of course, if you’re anything like The Home Edit ladies).
Keep high-use items easy to access; tuck low-use items out of the way.
Stick accessories on walls or their own shelf.

7. Install Drawers and Shelving

New drawers and closet shelving are a fab upgrade to your closet space — and may be easier to install than you think. Visit your hardware store to shop lumber, pegboards, slide-out bins, and hardware for DIY projects, or purchase a prefab shelving system for all-in-one installation.

8. Use Wall Space to Hold Smaller Items

Once you’ve maximized all your dividers, shelves, racks, and drawers, look to your walls to store jewelry and accessories. Here’s how to make this space more functional:

Add a small towel rack with hooks to hold jewelry.
Stick on clear plastic file holders or spice racks to hold beauty products.
Hang wire bins on damage-free hooks to hold accessories and small clothing items.

9. Tackle Your Shoe Situation

Footwear takes up a lot of closet space, but there are plenty of ways to reconfigure. Here are just a few of our favorite ideas for organizing your shoes:

Raise them off the ground with a rack or shelf; this will look much tidier.
Display on pre-built shelves by color, type, or size.
Use shoe stacking bins as an easy DIY purchase that doesn’t involve construction and fits nicely below your hanging items.
Use over-the-door shoe racks. (You can also place these on the back of your bedroom door to save even more closet space.)

10. Embrace Better Folding and Hanging Methods

Once you’ve sectioned off different areas of your closet, it’s time to try all your new hanging and folding techniques. You have valuable space in all those drawers, shelves, and boxes; now it’s time to make it shine!

Here are some tips to make the contents of your closet feel elegant and functional:

Use stacking methods for clothes on dividers and shelves, but not in drawers.
For drawers, use the vertical or file folding method. (Think Marie Kondo.)
Use special hangers to consolidate scarves, ties, and belts.
Nest bras inside of each other to save drawer space.
Store smaller bags inside bigger bags.
Hang pants on a hook organizer, keeping them wrinkle-free and out of your rack and shelf real estate.

Dive into this super satisfying video featuring tons of folding and hanging hacks below:

11. Give DIY Vacuum Sealing a Try

When you need to store a bunch of stuff in a small closet space or backup storage, look to the space-saving powers of a vacuum seal. You don’t need to buy special tools or containers for this trick; some drawstring trash bags and a home vacuum work just fine.

Store your packed vacuum-sealed items on the top shelf or back of your closet, or place them in storage until you’re ready to rotate them back into use.

12. Organize With Reusable Labels

One final way to make your sorting efforts stick (get it?)? Label everything! DIY tags make it so much easier to see what goes where and keep your closet organized — all at virtually no cost to your organizing budget. The best part? You can make the labels say whatever you want them to say. Want to keep your concert t-shirts together? Have a box of socks without mates? A collection of love notes from your boyfriend in first grade? Put a label on them! No judgment here!

13. Add a Trash Can and Donation Bin to the Space

Once everything is placed perfectly in your newly organized closet, put a small trash can and bin labeled “Donate” in the space. If you have the room, these will help remind you to stay organized and keep things tidy for months to come!

Ready to tackle your closet clutter? Whether you’re redesigning on a budget or building a new walk-in wardrobe, let these closet organization ideas help optimize every square inch you have available. Who knows? You may end up wanting to tackle the rest of your house. And lucky for you, from organizing the garage to decluttering the kitchen, our Containing the Chaos blog has all kinds of tips and tricks to help. Happy stacking!

Amelia England is a content writer and regular contributor to the PODS blog. Her favorite home organization activities involve gardening, thrifting, and taking care of her dogs, chickens, and rabbits.

How to Organize Clothes and More in Your Closet

It's inspiring to think about organizing your clothes, shoes, and accessories perfectly in your closet when watching home design shows. But in real life, it takes a bit of planning and preparation to declutter, clean, and reorganize a closet to make sure it's more functional after you finish.

Follow these tips to learn how to best organize your clothes closet so it rivals those you see on TV.

Watch Now: How to Easily Organize Your Closet

Before You Begin

Before you jump into organizing your closet, gather tools and supplies that will help make the job easier. Here’s your quick closet organization toolkit:

Shopping bags: Use sturdy bags to transport clothes to the donation center, tailor, and dry cleaner. If you don't have bags, boxes and bins will do in a pinch.
Tape measure: Measure shelving and hanging space. Don't forget a notebook to jot down your closet's measurements.
Full-length mirror: To decide between "toss" and "keep," make sure your mirror can accommodate your entire image.
Catch-all basket: This includes loose change, papers, rubber bands, hair clips, wads of cash (score!), and assorted receipts you'll find in pants pockets. You don't want to have to stop in the middle to file these small items so just put them aside for now into your catch-all basket.

The Spruce / Daria Groza

Steps to Organize Your Closet

How you organize your closet will differ slightly based on the space you have, the size of your wardrobe, and the kind of life you lead. However, these five universal steps can be applied to any closet and any wardrobe:

Empty
Clean
Declutter
Assess
Organize

Empty Your Closet

If you’re used to shoving clothes into your closet, this is going to be weird, because you’re about to take everything out and probably find some stuff shoved in a back corner that you forgot about. Remove everything from the closet, including hangers, baskets, bins, and anything else that might be on the floor or shelves.

Clean Every Corner

You need a clear, clean space to plan and visualize how you're going to re-organize your closet. First, dust the shelving and hanging rods. Next, run the vacuum or sweep and mop the floor. Finally, wipe the shelving, hanging rods, walls, and baseboards down with a good all-purpose cleaner. Don’t forget any baskets or bins that could be collecting dirt and dust.

Declutter Your Clothes, Shoes, and Accessories

Now comes the part you’ve either been looking forward to or dreading. Some people fear decluttering because they love to hold onto things they “may need one day” or “used to fit/be in style.” Focus on what to keep rather than what you’re getting rid of—a key part of the KonMari Method of organization.

When you're trying to decide whether or not to keep something, it's helpful to ask yourself these questions:

Do you love it?
Do you wear it?
Does it project the image you want to portray?

If the answer is "yes" to all three, then you can confidently place that item into the keeper pile.

If you’re having a hard time, then create a "maybe" pile. Put your maybe pile into a bin and revisit it one, three, or six months later. If you forgot about these items or never thought about wearing them, you can confidently donate or consign them.

Assess Storage Solutions

Figuring out the right closet storage solutions for your particular space can be challenging. Luckily, there are tons of great options for closet organizers, including closet system kits, but most people can get away with installing a few budget-friendly closet organizers.

The Spruce / Margot Cavin

Replace and Organize

Replace your closet contents, carefully organizing your clothing, shoes, and accessories according to your storage plan. Think about where it makes sense to store each category of clothing, and then think about the easiest spots to reach in your closet.

Group like with like: Gather belts, sweaters, long-sleeve shirts, work pants, dresses, button-down shirts, jeans, shorts, etc. , and decide the best place to store each item as a group (e.g., hang pants in the closet, fold and stack sweaters in a bureau). Working in groups of items will help you figure out how much space you need and the best way to store each type of item.
Properly utilize prime real estate: Reserve the front and middle of your closet for clothes you wear most often. If you have to get dressed for work each morning at 6 a.m., make sure your work clothes are at the front of your closet. Lesser-worn items like formal wear and out-of-season clothes should be stored toward the back and on the upper shelves.
Tuck away least-used items: Use the very top of your closet for out-of-season items and stuff you only wear a few times a year, such as Halloween costumes and super-fancy shoes.

Best Closet Design Companies of 2022

Closet Storage Tips

Closet storage solutions aren’t going to create more space in your closet; however, closet organizers, storage solutions, and closet systems can help to make more storage space accessible to you. For example:

A step stool will make it easier for you to reach the top shelves of your closet.
A double hang will make better use of horizontal storage space in the closet.
An over-the-door shoe rack can turn your door into the perfect place to store either shoes, accessories, or both.

You might be tempted to throw your hands up, pull out your credit card, and buy an expensive closet system. Resist this urge. Measure the space, assess what you already have, and then plan your closet accordingly. Buy only what you need to store your clothes, and re-purpose what you already own, if possible. Small bookcases, cubbies, and baskets are great for storing handbags, shoes, accessories, and gym clothes.

Finally, don't forget to measure a space three times before buying a new storage item. Nothing is worse than carting something home and finding it's just a smidge too wide.

The Spruce / Leticia Almeida

Maintaining Your Newly Organized Closet

The more often you work on closet maintenance, the less time it will take. Go through your closet and complete a quick tidying once a month, and tackle the full re-organization process twice a year.

Make it easy on yourself by following a cleaning schedule, either by season, by date (such as your birthday or New Year's), or by an event. The next time you can't find an important piece of clothing, that's a good sign you need to re-organize your closet.

Take the Quiz

How organized are you? Take our short personality quiz to find out how organized you really are plus get tips for better organization.

Organization of the perfect wardrobe - Perfect Wardrobe

A large and spacious wardrobe is the dream of so many. Not only girls and women, but also men dream of a dressing room. To all of us, the wardrobe is presented as a wide bright room with many shelves, boxes, hangers and storage systems.

However, not many people can afford to arrange their ideal wardrobe in this way. For its convenience and appearance, as a rule, it is not the allocated area that is responsible, but the system for organizing and designing this space.

Let's try to help you in this difficult, but at the same time interesting and creative matter - how to organize a wardrobe.

So, let's determine what steps the organization of the ideal wardrobe consists of:

Step 1. Choosing a space for a wardrobe.

Step 2. Determination of what things will be stored in the wardrobe.

Step 3. Space planning.

Step 4. Finding and buying the missing wardrobe items.

Step 5. Placement of things.

Step 6. Maintain order.

Let's take a closer look at each of these steps.

Choice of wardrobe space.

In practice, a situation is more common when this is not a choice, but a given, which depends on the size of the house or apartment, as well as the way of life. Agree that a person who lives on his own or a young married couple who are quite mobile and often move, there is absolutely no need to acquire a large stationary dressing room. However, everyone wants to have a convenient, organized and beautiful place to store things.

Where can a wardrobe be located:

Separate dressing room
Large wardrobe
Several cabinets and chests of drawers
A small wardrobe that needs to accommodate several wardrobes at the same time.

I repeat that often, when determining a place for the future “home” for our things, we do not proceed from the number of things, but from the amount of available space. If there is a choice, then you need to be guided by a few simple rules:

The wardrobe should be hidden from prying eyes. After all, this is your personal space. You can show it off if you want, but definitely don't organize your wardrobe in a walkable area.
You should be comfortable dressing there at the beginning of the day, undressing in the evening, choosing outfits. It is logical if the dressing room is located behind the bedroom.
The dressing room should be well lit and painted in light colors. This will allow you to see the outfits in real color, as well as pay attention to what advantages of the figure emphasize your outfits.
Household trifles, items intended for house cleaning, toys and other foreign objects should not be stored in the dressing room. This is the realm of your style and appearance.

Determine what items will be stored in the wardrobe.

This question is also purely individual. However, you must determine this at the very beginning. To properly organize the space of your wardrobe. When choosing storage categories, keep in mind the capacity of the space that you have already chosen and where you plan to place these things.

The wardrobe can store:

Casual wear
Home and sportswear
Party wear
Lingerie
Seasonal clothing
Outerwear
Hats
Shoes
Accessories

Some of you will exclaim that all these things will never fit in your wardrobe. Then you should find another comfortable space for them, which you also organize.

Remember that the mentioned categories should be slightly separated from each other. Agree that it would be strange to store lace underwear and winter boots on the same shelf. Therefore, be guided by common sense and the principle of "like to like".

Wardrobe space planning.

The main goal of space planning is to organize things in such a way that they are easy to find, convenient to take, and at the same time everything around continues to please the eye, and does not look like a “dump” at home.

Therefore, after you have determined the categories of things that will be stored in a wardrobe or closet, divide these categories into types of things that are similar in shape or type of fabric: shirts and polos, knit sweaters and tops, trousers, skirts, trouser suits, coats and jackets etc. This is necessary because different types of things are stored differently. And these storage conditions must be observed if you want your favorite things to serve you longer.

By placing each type on shelves, racks, wardrobe hangers, you can arrange them by color. So your wardrobe will look more harmonious, and certain things will be easier to find. Therefore, when planning a space, be guided by these rules.

Search and purchase of missing wardrobe items.

Everything is simple here. Be guided by one simple principle - each thing should have its own house. Therefore, if according to the plan the “house” is not enough, then it must be purchased in addition. These can be boxes, storage trays, suit hangers, special hangers for trousers and skirts, hangers for outerwear, hangers for delicate items, hangers for shirts, hangers for accessories and much more. To make your wardrobe or closet look harmonious. All elements included in it must be of the same type, shape and color. Many will decide that this rule can be neglected, but we will predict the result of this decision in advance: all things will hang at different levels, the colors of the hangers will distract from the color of things, create chaos, and irregularly shaped hangers will deform things.

Placement of things in the wardrobe.

The placement of things will depend on how you planned the space and whether you have enough "houses" for things. Treat this process no less creatively than the very planning of the wardrobe space. Hang them up and arrange them by color, size, or frequency of wear. Take a closer look. Is everything convenient? Try organizing differently.

Maintaining order.

Congratulations! You have done a great job, for which you are rewarded with a beautiful view of your wardrobe. But this result is easy to lose. And you must admit that it will be a shame to see another pile of things in the place of a perfectly organized wardrobe. Therefore, it is important to observe the following simple rules:

Put things back in their place each time.
When adding new clothes or removing things from the wardrobe, do not break the system. Even the newest and finest blouse should hang with the rest of the tops, and not in rows with trousers, because there it is better visible.
All stored items must be clean. Dirty things go straight to the dirty laundry basket, and do not huddle them on the shelves.
When buying a new item, make sure that there is an appropriate hanger or shelf space for it.
Remove the packaging film immediately after dry cleaning. Lack of air access spoils things.
Do not store clothing on metal wire hangers. They deform things.

Wardrobe organization in a small apartment: 12 tips from ReRooms

If you have nowhere to put your clothes and spend hours looking for the right pair of shoes, this article is for you.

Good for those who have a large apartment and a separate dressing room! For each thing - its own hanger, a lot of shelves and drawers, nothing gets lost, you can have a bunch of clothes. Of course, organizing storage in a small closet is much more difficult than in a large one, but in fact, the same principles apply everywhere. If you follow simple rules, spend a little time, effort and imagination, it will not matter if you have a large dressing room or one locker.

We really started this article as a guide for owners of small apartments. But we were convinced from our own experience that our information will be useful to everyone. Here is a list of twelve useful tips, but we are sure that it is enough to take into account at least half of them in order to never again think about storing clothes and spend a lot of time searching. Moreover, spring is in the yard, and now is the time to update the interior and put things in order in it. Let's start together!

1. Get rid of excess

Checked: many people are very sorry to part with clothes and shoes, even if we do not wear them. Such things wait in the wings for years, go out of fashion, become small for us, but for some reason we save them and even forget about their existence. Conduct an audit in the closet and take a sober look at every thing. Most can be taken to a used clothing collection point, some can be donated, and some can be thrown away altogether. You will see how much more space in the wardrobe will become!

Photo: themasterhome.club

2. Sort

But just getting rid of unnecessary things is not enough. If you are that fashionista, the remaining clothes need to be sorted somehow. After all, in a small closet a large number of things will sooner or later get mixed up, and it will be sad to get rid of them. The solution is simple: store everything by color, size or style. Try to check at least once a week if everything is in order and sort the clothes. This will make it much easier to find the right thing when you are late for work in the morning.

Photo: cefixime.us

3. Choose hangers

Order is everything! And hangers will help with this. First, you need to choose the best, preferably wooden. They are durable, do not bend, keep their shape well and help clothes to keep it. It is important that all the hangers are the same, this will make the cleaning and searching steps easier for you and it just looks beautiful. There is one more nuance: by the number of hangers and their density, it is easy to determine whether it is time for you to conduct an audit.

Photo: banggood.com

4. Pay attention to the door

If you have a dressing room, but it is very small, you need to use any free plane, such as a door. Hooks, handles and lattices are perfectly attached to it, where you can store bags, scarves, ties. In general, everything that can not occupy the usable area of shelves and drawers.

Photo: wellesleyandking.com

5. Get a Shoe Cabinet

Shoes are best kept closed, but closets don't always have enough drawers and compartments to fit every pair of shoes. The cabinet for shoes can stand in the dressing room or in the hallway, it looks aesthetically pleasing and takes up little space. But in our latitudes, in this way it is better to store summer shoes, shoes, sandals, light boots that do not get very dirty, do not wrinkle and do not require special care.

Photo: decoratorist.com

6. Use sachets and wardrobe trunks

It's great that in our time there are many hanging textile boxes, dividers, sachets and covers. They are easy to remove, change places, store compactly, they protect from dust, not a single trifle will ever be lost in them. It is much more convenient to put socks and underwear in tiny sachet pockets than to dump them in a pile and take up half the chest of drawers.

Photo: pbteen.com

7. Come up with a system

Train yourself to always put things in the same place and fold them in the same way. A neat stack of sweaters on a shelf, t-shirts in a drawer, and shirts on hangers is a very simple and straightforward system. Much better than when everything is where it is necessary and each item is complex in its own way. Yes, it’s not easy to maintain such an order at first, but in the name of free space, you can’t get used to it either!

Photo: jutarnji.hr

8. Use storage devices

There are plenty of accessories to help you make the most of every inch of your closet or walk-in closet. For example, large clothespins for trousers and jeans, retractable hangers, a hanger with rings for scarves and scarves, hooks for hats and bags. Companies that manufacture wardrobe systems usually have a lot of tricks to make life easier. But many of these tricks can be mastered on your own, if you really want to.

Photo: img-3.journaldesfemmes.fr

9. Opt for drawers

As a rule, we choose cabinets with shelves. It's simple, cheap and clear. As a result, a pile of clothes is formed on the shelf, or we simply cannot get to the farthest corner to find a five-year-old T-shirt there. There will never be such a problem with drawers: all clothes are in plain sight, there is no multi-story pyramid, it is much easier to work with dividers and wardrobe trunks. This option is more expensive than shelves, but much more practical.

Photo: amazinghouse.org

10. Stock up on clear boxes

This tip is especially for shoes and clothing that you rarely use. Identical transparent boxes look very neat, and you will see from afar where exactly what you are looking for lies. And then you can hide the boxes on the farthest shelves and not make a pogrom every time in search of what you need.

Photo: theiqcollective.com

11. Light up

A large dark closet, deep shelves, a lot of things - and now you can't figure out what's what.