Above is a video that I did for About.com to show you how to organize your closet. For those of you who’d rather read about it than watch the video, here’s some tips on “How to Organize Your Closet.”

1. The first step is make sure that you have the right supplies on hand before you begin. You will need:
   1. Sturdy bags for donations or for those items that need to go to the dry cleaner.
   2. A full-length mirror so that you can try things on in the process to help you decide between “toss” and “keep.”
   3. A basket for loose change, papers, rubber bands, hair clips, and other things that you might find in the process. You don’t want to have to stop to put away these small items so just put them aside for now into your catch-all basket.
2. You might also want to consider investing in:
   1. Over-the door organizers
   2. Stackable shoe bins
   3. Drawer dividers
   4. Under-the-bed bins. (You can store some of the rarely worn or used items that were in your closet under your bed and free up some valuable space).
3. The next step is to empty the closet completely. Yes, completely. Everything out! It is best to have a clear, clean space to plan and visualize how you’re going to re-organize your closet.
4. Next, you need to decide what to keep and what to toss or donate. To help you decide, ask yourself these three questions: Do you love it? Do you wear it? Does it fit?
   1. If the answer is YES to all 3 questions, then you can place those items into the pile of things to keep.
   2. If it doesn’t fit, put it directly into the donation pile along with other items that you no longer like or want.
   3. If you have haven’t worn something for more than 6 months, it is probably time to toss it, sell it, or donate it.
5. The next step is to sort through everything and group like items together. For example, put all jackets together, all socks together, dresses with dresses, etc.
6. Now you’re ready to put everything back. The important thing to remember is that you should put things back in a way that makes sense to you. This helps you utilize all of your available space and is easy to maintain. For example, you might want to reserve the front and middle of your closet for clothes you wear most often, making sure your work clothes are easily accessible. Lesser-worn items like formal dresses may be put towards the back of your closet, out-of-season clothes towards the back or on the upper shelves.
7. Finally, I recommend completely re-organizing your closet once a year. Or, you can break it into smaller pieces by organizing seasonally. If you choose to reorganize once a year, choose a date that you’ll remember and make a habit of sticking to it the same time each year. If you choose to do it by season, the first day of each season should make things easy to remember!

Remember to keep it simple!

Call us today at (310) 560-5060 to help you get your closet organized.

The first thing to do in any area that you’re going to work on is to empty it completely. Yes, completely. Everything out. This is important as this allows you to see everything that was initially in there and determine what should and should not go back there.

Once everything has been emptied out of the closet, sort everything into categories. For example: all the towels in one place, all the sheets in another, etc.

Now it’s time to purge. This means that anything either ripped or stained or no longer in use needs to be thrown away. If you still have twin sheets but no longer have a twin bed, it’s time for those linens to become rags or be donated. By the way, a great place to donate used linens is pet shelters.

The fun part is putting everything back in an organized way so that you can see what’s there and get to it easily. Before you start putting things back, take a minute to think about how you want this space to look when you’re done. There are two ways that I recommend organizing linens:

• One is to tie a ribbon around a set of sheets so that they’re all in one neat package.
• The other way is to put a set of sheets into one pillow case so the entire set is in one easily accessible bundle.

I suggest keeping two sets of linens for each bedroom so that there’s always another clean set. You can also change linens without having to do laundry right away.

As for the towels, there are several ways you can organize them.

• If there are several people in the house, I recommend assigning each member of the family a certain color so that everyone knows which towels are theirs. If this sounds right for your family, assemble sets so that each one includes two towels, one hand towel and a washcloth.
• Another way is to just put all the bath towels together, all the hand towels together, and all the washcloths together.

Put the items you don’t use frequently on the highest shelves, like your extra blankets and pillows.

Then begin putting the rest away by grouping similar items together; sheets on one shelf and towels on another.

You may want to invest in shelf dividers. Having the ability to divide blankets from duvets and comforters is a nice touch and will help make everything easier to find as well as just make everything look a lot neater.

Finally, don’t forget to label the shelves so that anyone can find what they’re looking for and put them back where they belong.

Call us at (310) 560-5060 to schedule a ½ hour consultation.