Closet Organizing – Lessons Learned
Posted at 10:33 pm on August 27, 2012 by JamieMartin
Sometimes my clients get hung up on what to use a particular closet for, pun intended.
They might think that because the closet is located by the bathroom that they must use it as a linen closet, for example.
(Lesson #1 - What should go in a closet is only dictated by what you need to store there.)
I recently worked with a client on organizing a closet located right by the front door. It was intended for coats when the house was built. But now everyone in the family comes in the back door and they store their coats in the closet closest to that door.
My client really wanted the hall closet to have half the space available for guest coats and use the rest to store table linens and gift wrapping supplies. Basically, we needed to empty half the closet! No problem…
We sorted through everything to organize the closet and found a couple of bags of clothes that were ready to donate quite some time ago but never made it out of the house. (Lesson #2 - Donate items as soon as you have collected them up so they don’t work their way back into your life. Lesson #3 - The difference between a messy home and a tidy home is the amount of time between task identification and task completion.) After sorting and purging the rest, we were able to easily leave half the hanging bar empty for guest coats!
In order to free up some hanging space, we used swing arm pants hangers to store the table linens and we put all the cloth napkins in a drawer by the dining room table. (Lesson #4 - You can use organization products whatever way works for you! This item is easy to use because the arms swing out for easy access.) We had a few categories of items that needed to be containerized so we purchased a couple of baskets to go on the shelves. Closet organized! (See below for the after photos.)
My client’s goal of an organized closet with space for guest coats was reached in about 1.5 hours time. What closet in your home could be utilized in a non-traditional way? What’s your most disorganized closet?
Jamie Martin, Destination Organization founder, has a passion for helping others simplify their lives. She specializes in helping over-committed, stay-at-home parents and serial entrepreneurs.
She has been a professional organizer for over 5 years, is a member of The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) and NAPO-Chicago. She is currently Director of Marketing of NAPO-Chicago. Jamie has been featured in publications such as Patch.com, The Chicago Tribune, Glancer Magazine, Body and More and Chicago Home Improvement Magazine.
Jamie has been married to John and living in Glen Ellyn for 18 years. They have one son, 8-year-old Lucas.
You can find Jamie @ www.destorg.com, Email, Twitter or on Facebook.
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