If there’s one place in the home that’s going to be put to good use, it’s the closet. Whether spacious or on the small side, you want to utilize and maximize every inch of closet storage. That’s why it can be difficult to keep closets organized and clutter-free. While it may be challenging, it’s not impossible — and we’re here to help.
We spoke with several experts and rounded up the best closet organization ideas and clever tips to keep your closet neat and tidy all year-round. Clearing out your closet doesn’t have to be reserved for spring when many people set aside time to deep clean and organize their homes. It can be an ongoing effort, and these organization tips and clever organizing products will help keep you on task. But first, you must do the dirty work. And by that we mean rolling up your sleeves and assessing the situation.
“The best way to organize a closet: Pull it all out — organize, categorize, and minimize,” says Jane Abrahams, founder and owner of Jane’s Addiction Organization. “A simple rolling rack can help with the process.” While this is a good approach, what works for some may not work for all.
Lisa Lawmaster Hess, author of Know Thyself: The Imperfectionist’s Guide to Sorting Your Stuff, stresses the importance of embracing your own unique organizational style. “The most important tip for organizing anything is to make sure that the tools we’re using work for us,” she says. “So often, we adopt things that work for other people and then become frustrated — and a little poorer — when those things don’t work for us.”
Ready to find the closet organization strategy that works for you? Read on for ways to make the most out of your wardrobe space.
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Don’t Wait for Spring
Who said spring was the only time to declutter? Clearing out your closet can take place during any season.
“Anytime you feel overwhelmed picking out clothes is the right time to start,” says Stephanie Greenberg, creative director at Jane’s Addiction Organization. “However, seasonal organization is key.”
Seasonal organization is a great place to start because it typically requires putting away items that aren’t used due to the changing seasons.
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Declutter Before You Do Anything Else
Don’t just jump into adding organization tools and containers. It won’t do you any good if you are bursting at the seams.
So what’s the best criteria to use for what to keep and what to toss? “Only keep the things that make you feel great when you wear them. Sometimes we’ve gotten stuck in a rut of wearing stuff we don’t really love, and we don’t think to incorporate some of our favorite pieces into our regular wardrobe,” says Lucy Milligan Wahl, owner of professional organizing company LMW Edits in San Francisco. “If you get rid of anything that makes you feel less than amazing, you’ll be left with a closet full of pieces that inspire you to express yourself through your clothes!”
Use a heavy-duty, oversized storage bag to contain what you don’t need so you can easily donate to an organization you care about.
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Host a Clothing Party
Before you toss unwanted items, see if some of your besties might want dibs on your soon-to-be donated duds.
“Invite friends over for a clean up/dress-up party,” Greenberg suggests. “Declutter and organize your closet while donating some of the pieces that you are getting rid of to your besties. Have some fun an even help them style their new looks. Best girls night in!”
For a fun “shopping” experience, put your items on display with a rolling clothing rack.
SHOP CLOTHING RACK WITH WHEELS
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Hang a Hamper
If you keep your hamper in a closet, this space-saving basket will be a godsend. Get laundry off the floor and make room for more essential items.
This hamper also doubles as storage for clothes that aren’t in season. It’s perfect for stacking sweaters and other winter items during the summer months.
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Color Coordinate Your Clothes
No matter your organizational style, Abrahams offers a tip that will suit just about anyone.
“A categorized closet is a simple and functional system,” she suggests. “Start by coordinating by color.”
Organizing your clothing by color is a great way to add a glamorous showroom touch to your closet. Plus, it makes it easier to find certain items.
“Implementing systems and streamlining is key to keeping your space well organized,” Abraham adds.
Hang Your Hats
You’ll want to tip your hat to this nifty hanger.
Say goodbye to baseball caps and other headgear cluttering closet shelves with this five-bracket metal hanger. Plus, the curved shape helps prevent bends and crushed toppers. The best part? No tools required. Simply hang and organize your caps in this easy-to-use display. What’s more, you’ll be able to find your favorite caps in a cinch, which cuts down on frantic searches.
“Being organized creates a stress-free environment to get ready day or night,” says Greenberg.
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Create a System
According to Wahl, it’s a good idea to keep your clothing neat, accessible, and visible. “I like to use shelf dividers to keep folded stacks of clothing tidy, as opposed to fabric bins which hide the clothes from view,” she explains. “I also believe in the power of matching hangers. When all your hangers match, they visually recede into the background and place your focus on the clothes.”
If your closet doesn’t have sections and compartments, consider adding a closet system with easily visible areas to give you something to work with.
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Insert Clothing Divider Tags
While closet dividers are pretty much par for the course for parents, given how easy they make it to categorize baby clothes by age, the closet accessories can be beneficial for adults, too. This set of 16 includes seasonal tags, days of the week, and types of clothing.
Jeronic
Make Hangers Work for You
Barbara Brock, founder and CEO of Beauty & The Box and former president of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals, says that color-coding your hangers can be a helpful closet organization hack. By using different colors for different clothing categories, you’ll be able to easily hone in on the garments you’re searching for.
This multi-color set on Amazon is a great option — it comes with 30 hangers in five different colors, which feature various nooks and hooks to ensure garments won’t slip off the hangers.
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Take Advantage of Your Top Shelf
To keep your shelves organized, consider adding dividers for your belongings to nestle between. In doing so, you’ll create set boundaries for categories, which will keep your top shelves (and any others you might have) from becoming cluttered messes.
Clear dividers work best, as they keep things separated and organized while still allowing you to see everything you have.
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Hang Your Pants
It’s typical to fold pants and pile them into a drawer, but Wahl suggests storing jeans on hangers because it takes up less room.
“The most space-saving method for hanging jeans is to clip them by the waistband like a skirt. This does require a taller space, like a long hang area where most people would store dresses and coats,” she says. “I also like to fold jeans and file them vertically in drawers or stack them on shelves using simple shelf dividers to keep the piles neat.”
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Leverage Clever Hangers
If you’re working with limited space in your closet, vertical hangers can be a godsend. This set comes with eight — each of which accommodates five regular hangers. The beauty of this design is that it can be hung traditionally or suspended from a single hanger, saving ample space in the process.
Pro tip: These hangers are also fabulous for travel. After hanging up everything you hope to pack, unhook the vertical hanger to lay your clothes flat into your luggage, tuck in the ends, and you’re good to go. When you arrive at your destination, you can pull the pre-assembled hanger out of your bag and transfer it directly to the closet.
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Add Some Drawers
While most closets are outfitted with rods to hang clothes, sometimes the open area underneath goes underutilized. Consider adding drawers to have contained spaces for the odds and ends that don’t quite fit in your dresser drawers.
Before you make a selection, take inventory of what those odds and ends are so you know the drawer sizes suitable for those items.
Organize Your Undergarments
On the topic of drawers, don’t forget to organize your unmentionables.
Drawer storage boxes are perfect for containing bras, underwear, tights, camisoles, and more. Made of nylon mesh, they’re soft, flexible, and lightweight. You can also wash them in a washing machine when dusty. This set comes with a six-compartment box, a seven-compartment box, and an 11-compartment box.
Amazon
Light Things Up
One thing that’s sometimes ignored when creating a tidy closet is lighting. “Be sure to have daylight light bulbs in your closet,” says Colleen Lunsford, a closet organization expert and image consultant with House of Colour. “This will help to see the true color of items of clothing, and determine if the style and color match other pieces in your wardrobe.”
These automatic, motion sensor lights are great for closets, as they are wireless and rechargeable.
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Don’t Forget About Your Accessories
Another category you don’t want to overlook while organizing your closet? Your hair accessories. Instead of tossing all your headbands into a bin and forgetting they exist, opt for one of these wildly popular acrylic headband holders from The Home Edit’s collection at Walmart.
Put Purses Where You Can See Them
This acrylic handbag organizer will display and hold your smaller clutches and bags neatly in your closet. Each comes with four sections, so buy as many as you need to showcase your favorites. Only ideal for clutches, wallets, and small shoulder bags, you will want to consider hooks or bins for your larger handbags and backpacks.
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Hang Your Handbags
These simple S hooks are the solution to storing your prized purse possessions. Made of chrome metal, its twisted design utilizes the top part of the hook to hang on a rod, while the bottom part will hold your precious bags.
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Utilize Hangers With Tiers
Hangers with tiers easily stack your clothing items while hanging on your rod. “One of my favorite closet organizing hacks is using tiered hangers for hanging pants,” explains Andre Kazimierski, CEO of home service business Improovy. “Instead of individually hanging each pair of pants on a separate hanger, you save room by hanging them in the space of one. It’s a great design for cramped and spacious closets alike.”
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Don’t Underestimate Hooks
Let’s be honest, some items are worn more frequently than others. Whether it’s a robe, jacket, ball cap, or purse, over-the-door waterfall hooks can keep your favorite daily items vertically organized for easy access so you don’t have to go digging through your closet to find them. Plus, they also make good use of otherwise unused door space.
Implement Hanging Storage
If you don’t want to add a drawer system to your closet for fear of it eating up precious floor space (a.k.a. shoe storage), consider hanging storage bins. This one has six separable tiers with removable drawers that boast even more organization options.
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Put Accessories on Display
The easiest way to keep track of all your necklaces, rings, bracelets, and earrings is with a well-organized jewelry box. This acrylic system includes compartmentalized drawers complete with ring storage and pull-out earring racks.
Amazon
Stack Your Jewelry
If you don’t want your jewelry storage to be quite so obvious, opting for a stackable system might better fit your fancy. These trays stack on top of each other, making for a compact storage solution that can sit atop your dresser or hidden within a drawer.
Get Your Shoes off the Floor
You’ll need to stack or tier your shoes in order to be able to store them all in your closet. Build them up by using a shoe organizer with racks. You can also double your storage space with stacking shoe holders like these. Alternatively, you can try a rolling cart or an over-the-door hanging shoe organizer.
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Keep Boots Intact
It’s easy to store shoes, but boots provide a set of challenges because — depending on the bootleg height — they may fold over and won’t stand.
Wahl’s suggestion? Stuff your boots while in storage. “I like the Innies brand of quilted boot fitters,” she says. “They are precisely sized to make your boots look great in your closet.”
Don’t Forget the Closet Door
There are many storage solutions to use over the door of your closet. Perfect for shoes or small accessories, there are even hanging organizers that are pretty enough to hang outside the closet, as well as inside.
SHOP OVER-THE-DOOR HANGING STORAGE
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Stock up on Easy-to-See Storage Bins
Fabric boxes with lids will go a long way — you can stack them and utilize every inch of vertical space that you have in your closet.
A clear window allowing you to peek into each box is a definite plus. That way, you can easily remind yourself what’s buried low in your stack of bins, without having to take them down and look through one by one.
SHOP CLOTHING BINS WITH CLEAR WINDOW
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Label Everything
Watch any home organization show and you’ll be told time and time again that labeling is key. By clearly categorizing the items in your closet, you’ll never waste time searching for specific garments.
While many label makers exist, this easy-to-use Brother one features multiple sizes, fonts, colors, and templates so you can personalize your labeling system however you’d like.
Give Smaller Items Their Own Space
Besides jewelry, you’ll need a spot in your closet for other small accessories like belts, ties, pocket squares, or glasses. Acrylic bins with dividers can be a great catch-all for those items. Buy as many as you need depending on the categories you have.
Add Adjustable Rods
There are so many clever ways to create storage space without over-stuffing.
An adjustable closet rod that hangs from your existing rod is a genius storage solution suggested to us by Annie Brown, founder of Savvy Honey, where she shares tons of organizing ideas. Made of durable steel, expand this product’s width as wide as 30 inches. You can also adjust its height by 35 inches.
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Load up Your Luggage
Maximizing space can also mean using your luggage as storage. Ideal for things you’ll use when you travel — like garment bags, travel totes, and resort wear — your luggage can be their safe haven.
Don’t know where to keep luggage that you’re using as storage? A luggage rack could be a good solution. This foldable option has an attached fabric basket for additional, more accessible storage space.
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Fold With Care
Haphazardly throwing clothes into your drawers and closet bins won’t do you any good. Folding items properly and with precision will not only keep things looking tidy, but will save you space in the long run.
While you can fold things the Marie Kondo way, if you don’t have proper technique, this could go awry. This folding tool (to fold clothes the conventional way — sorry, Kondo fans) can help you with your next folding frenzy.
Use Vacuum Storage Bags for Bulky Seasonal Items
“You don’t need bulky seasonal items cluttering up your closet all year round. Instead, pick a space in the closet to store them and buy a few vacuum seal bags,” says Jen Stark, founder of Happy DIY Home.
Seal up those seasonal items not in use with a handle vacuum sealer. “All you’ll need to do is pack the clothing in, seal the bag, and hook the vacuum up to it to suck the air out and compress the bulky items down to a more manageable size,” Stark explains.
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Try a Slim Storage Solution
Unless you have a monster walk-in closet, a slim closet solution can make a huge difference in keeping your space neat and tidy. We love this rolling cart with a handle that measures only five inches in width. Roll it behind a nook or to the side of your closet next to hanging clothes to store anything that’s able to slide in to fit.
Shop Slim Rolling Storage Cart
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Make Extra Rack Space
If you’re lucky enough to have extra space in your bedroom or mudroom, a well-designed clothing rack like this one could be a great solution for extra storage. In addition to a 32-inch rod for hanging, there are four hooks and two shelves (one at the top and one at the bottom) for holding additional items.
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Find Space for Extra Rods
Whether you’re looking to add more hanging space to your personal closet or an extremely deep hall or coat closet, an over-the-door rod is a great option. This one is sold in silver, black, and white, and can support up to 35 pounds.
SHOP OVER THE DOOR HANGER RACKS
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VAEHOLD
Take the Lazy Susan out of the Kitchen
That “lazy Susan” shouldn’t just be for the kitchen! You can use rotating storage containers in your closet for small accessories, like fashion jewelry, toiletries, and makeup.
CyHom
Safely Store Sentimental Items
Whether it’s seasonal or sentimental, dust-proof fabric storage bins are a great way to keep things out of the way when not in use. A clear center will help remind you what’s inside, and a zipper and side handles make for easy and convenient handling.
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Try the Seasonal Hanging Method
Consider doing this if you want to keep yourself honest about what you wear and what you don’t.
“Use the seasonal hanger method tool,” advises Lunsford. “Turn your hangers one way, and once you wear that item, turn the hanger the other way. After the season is over, notice all of the clothes you did not wear, and check to see if those garments are ready to be donated.” If you haven’t worn it all year, it’s probably time to donate or sell the piece secondhand.
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Create a Donation Station
While the seasonal hanging method may show you which clothes you should part ways with, another option is to keep a donation bin set up in your closet (or home) year-round. When entering your closet, ask yourself these questions: “If I didn’t own it, would I buy it again?” and “If this were the last clean thing in my wardrobe, would I be disappointed?” If you answered no to the former and/or yes to the latter, toss the item in the donation bin.
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Give Your Home a Refresh!
Discover brilliant ways to get organized, declutter, and make over any room. These downloadable digital guides make it easier than ever to give your home a refresh. Visit our store to find dozens of ideas from Woman’s Day and our sister brands.
