How to Properly Arrange The Clothes in Your Closet

Arranging your wardrobe is highly dependent on effective closet system organization. There are numerous methods for accomplishing this endeavor: rods, bins, shelves, racks, cubbies, and drawers to name a few.

Incorporate the following four tips to help arrange your closet's contents and reap the benefits of an organized and clutter-free space:

1.  Use Every Inch
2.  All About Creating Zones
3.  The Rainbow is Where It's At
4.  Placement is Everything

With the above considerations as guidelines, read below for details on how you can best reimagine your own closet space to make it your happy place!

Every closet has potential no matter its size, so make use of every inch of space. Use the doors, the walls, and the floor. Incorporate an adjustable system that allows you to maximize the full height of your closet as well. Doing so will provide you additional room to place numerous shelves or cubbies either above or alongside a hanging rod (or both if space permits), which can offer bonus storage.

Utilizing hooks on the side walls is a great way to store bags, hats, or other hanging storage organizers. On shelves, use dividers to assist in creating separate sections. With dividers in place, you now have boundaries for stacking folded clothes which goes a long way in maintaining a neater space.

Install a full-length, over-the-door hanger with pockets for shoes, socks, & other accessories such as belts, scarves, and even jewelry. On the floor, shoe racks & shoe trees are great alternatives if you have a lot of footwear.

Half of the battle of organizing a closet is finding a system that you can maintain. Creating delineated zones within your space will help tame the chaos. A closet without a purposeful plan ends up being an eyesore or a depot of haphazardly piled items, making it challenging to find what you want.

For the majority of homeowners, typically five zones will suffice:

Zone 1 -Hanging wardrobe pieces

Zone 2 - Folded/stacked clothing

Zone 3 - Shoes

Zone 4 -Accessories

Zone 5 - Minimal use/off-season items

Whatever zones you choose, make sure that they fulfill your own personal needs. Think about your current closet’s pain points and design a new layout with defined zones that can resolve them.  

The more obvious way to arrange your closet is to set up and organize by clothing type and category (skirts, pants, jackets, dresses, blouses/tops, etc); all placed like with like. This initial strategy is terrific because it further enhances your closet's appeal & makes it easier to find particular pieces by category and color range, a win-win!

The color blocking term ROYGBIV is based on the order of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet) with clothing grouped by color within categories. White, Cream, Tan, Pink, Brown, Gray, and Black follow after the rainbow palette. Clothing with patterns would come last. Establishing a color-coordinated methodology works for those items on hangers as well as shoes and folded clothing, really anything that is stored in your closet.

A place for everything and everything in its place is a well-known saying that infers that everything should have a “home” and be returned to that home when it's not being used. That mantra is vital when organizing a closet space. If you have created zones, as mentioned above, then all items living in your closet should have a home. The placement of each article is key within those zones.

You want to store often-used items at eye-level or within easy reach, while less-used items can be tucked higher up or off to the sides. Use durable matching or coordinated hangers for dresses, blouses/tops, and specialty hangers for items like belts, ties, scarves, and delicates, or those requiring to be hung by clips such as skirts. Using pants hangers allows you to maximize precious space by hanging several pairs on one which prevents overcrowding and hence, wrinkles.

For folded clothing, group similar items together, sweaters with sweaters, jeans with jeans, t-shirts with t-shirts, and be sure to color code like you do with your hanging items. It makes for not only an organized closet but a visually pleasing one at that!

Arranging the clothes in your closet need not be an arduous task. By reviewing your wardrobe’s inventory and making a handful of choices as you consider both its form and function, you can end up with a sustainable system that transforms how your closet works with and for you.