Spick and Span

I wouldn't call myself super clean or anal, but when it comes to my closet I can get a little Mark Sommers. I LOVE closet organization. I love clothes organized by style and color. I love matching hangers and everything having its place.
I travel a lot for work, so I often don't get to all my projects around the house.I realized this week that is was already July and 95+ outside and I hadn't switched my closet to summer yet. I had also let my closet go a bit. It was time for a revamp.

I've found that when everything has it's place, it is easy to keep it organized - and even easier to find exactly what you want to wear. Once you get your closet organized, it shouldn't be too hard to keep looking nice - even for the most disorganized.

My Tips for Organizing:

• Organize by article style and then color - Yes it sounds neurotic, but it is wonderful
• For example: Sleeveless: White - Black, Short Sleeve: White - Black
• Get matching hangers. I can't stress this enough. You can do all the organizing you want, but it will always look a mess if you have nasty dry cleaners hangers.
•  Have a "Holding Zone" - a open spot in the closet to hang clothes temporarily. Sometimes you just don't want to put something away immediately. Having a Holding Zone give you a place to set it for a bit rather than balling it up and throwing it in the corner of the closet
• If you have tall shelves, don't be afraid of the step stool. I know mine looks a little silly, but at 5'2", nothing would get put away correctly if I had to jump to get it there.

 Before:


I had a stack of clothes sitting on the floor and stacks of unfolded clothes. Please note the dry cleaning that had been hanging there for almost 2 weeks



   After:  

My step stool lets me get to my dresses and the luggage zone way up top.

 

My BIGGEST tip: get matching hangers. These white hangers are about $0.10/piece at Target. Some day when I get ambitious I want to switch to these hangers:



Under no circumstances should you have mis-matched or even worse WIRE HANGERS in your closet.



Here is my Holding Zone. Just don't let clothes stay here permanently.



* You may have noticed that Mr. Fonty's side (okay, corner) doesn't follow any of my rules. When we first moved in, despite Mr. Fonty telling me to keep my color coded fingers off his clothes, I organized all his plaid. I've rarely seen him get mad, and on this occasion, I didn't think he was going to forgive me. So today, he has his corner and I have mine, and I ignore the red next to the blue. At least the hangers match! (*sigh*).