How to Organize Your Bedroom Closet

People who live in apartments, however, have no garage and know that you can’t get all your stuff into that one little hall closet. Bedroom closets, besides holding clothes, have to absorb the overflow. (Tip: if you can afford it, rent an apartment with one more bedroom than you really need.)

We assume you’ve already followed the advice given in “How to Organize Your Bedroom” to rid yourself of all the clothing and footwear you don’t need. (You have, haven’t you?!) Now all you need to do is organize what’s left.

• Everything looks classier if the plastic hangars you use are all the same color. But, if you can afford them, get matching wood hangars; you can sometimes find them pretty cheap at places like Big Lots. Even if you have to pay extra, wood hangars last longer, bear more weight than the plastic variety, keep your clothes looking shapelier, and look classier than plastic hangars.
• Install shoe racks along one wall. Another alternative, as long as you don’t own a quarter-ton of boots, is to hang a wire rack built for that purpose from the closet door.
• Put up a set of wooden pegs high on a wall that will hold wire organizers for belts, ties, and scarves.
• As much as possible, keep stuff off the floor; it makes vacuuming easier.
• If you have lots of room under your bed, you can get clear plastic boxes that will fit under there. Put your closet overflow in them. Label the outside end of each box with its contents to make it easier to find what you want without having to go through all of the boxes.
• Organize the clothes pole any way you wish. Get creative – rather than organize by type of article, classify by color, by purpose, etc.
• For every new article of clothing that goes into the closet, see to it that one old article comes out. Put it in the recycle bag to be sold or given away.
• If there are two people sharing a closet, as in a kids’ room, see to it that each resident has his own storage units and that the closet clothes pole is divided down the middle with some kind of colorful hanging.