Organizational Overhaul--Master Closet

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to share before and after pictures of our master closet. We unloaded almost everything very quickly on the night we moved in, and it's bothered me for a while. I just hated the configuration of everything, but couldn't really put my finger on the problem. We had a HUGE closet at our old house (way bigger than we needed), and even though this closet is quite a bit smaller, it still is a good size. We don't have a ton of clothing, but it just felt so crowded.

I have storage boxes with my high heels, out of season shoes, and shoe care products on the top shelf, which I was happy with. 

I had this shoe organizer on the back of our old closet door, but this closet has sliding doors that can't be used for over the door storage. I improvised and hung it on some nails, but we still didn't have a good solution for Caleb's shoes, hence why they're all over the floor. We had a small shoe cubby thing that hung from the shelf, but it only held 4 or 5 pairs of shoes, and while Caleb does't have a ton of shoes, he has more than 4 or 5 pairs.

I had used both of these racks for Caleb's clothes, and I was a little bitter that he had so much more room than me (I know, I'm the one who set up the closet!). My dresses were hanging in that little corner section and they were hard to spread out and see.

Caleb has 3 rifles that are the bane of my organizing existence. Where am I supposed to store those 3 huge cases?? Luckily, they fit perfectly on this shelf. That and the storage boxes were about the only things that I felt good about in the closet! 

I started brainstorming other ways to arrange things, and decided that the space on that bottom rack was really wasted by Caleb's pants, because he just didn't have enough to fill it. Also, the bulky dress shirts on top overshadowed the bottom rack and made the closet feel smaller than it is. I knew we needed more shoe storage for Caleb, so I got on Amazon and found these shoe shelves, and ordered 2 in the bronze color. I started working on the clothing issue, and then when the shoe shelves arrived a couple days later, I finished things up. 

Ta-da! SO much better! I put Caleb's pants where my shirts were, moved my shirts where Caleb's shirts were, and put his shirts where his pants were (you following? 😜)

I removed Caleb's hanging shoe holder and was able to get my dresses out of the corner and onto the rack to the right of the shirts. See the steamer? I was able to fit that in the closet, whereas before it was stored in the guest bedroom!

New shoe shelves! I can't say enough good things about these. They took less than 10 minutes to assemble, look great, were an amazing price, and hold tons of shoes! We couldn't be happier with them! I fit all of Caleb's shoes on the top 3 shelves, and then used the bottom 3 for mine. I cut the hanging organizer because it was hitting the shelves, but I don't even need that many pockets anymore.

Ahhhhh.....I can breathe a little easier now 😊 

Here's a few tips for organizing YOUR closet!

1. Purge, purge, purge! This is something I do every few months, so I didn't really have anything to get rid of this time around. If you don't love it, toss it. If you can't fit in it, toss it. If it's stained/ripped, TOSS IT! There's no reason to fill your closet with things you don't love to/can't wear. 
2. Store out of season clothes somewhere else. We have a platform beds with drawers on the bottom (🙌🙌🙌) and I devote one of those drawers to out of season clothing. At the end of one season, I empty the drawer and go through what has been stored in there for the past few months. I usually don't wash things before I store them (unless they're obviously dirty) because they're going to be folded up for 4-6 months. So when I pull them out, I'll go through and purge anything I no longer want, and then launder the rest. I create space for them in the closet by emptying it of the the clothes that are now going to be out of season.
3. Use velvet hangers! These things are amazing, and I have been using them for my clothes for many years. They are very thin and non-slip, so anything you hang on them is going to stay in place. You would not believe how much less space these take! Caleb liked his dress shirts on wooden hangers, but when I did this closet overhaul, I switched them all to velvet hangers and they fit SO much better! The one thing I will say they don't work well for are crew neck t-shirts. Caleb has several that hang in the closet, and several years ago I irreversibly stretched the neck of his favorite one and let's just say he wasn't happy 🙈 #neverforget
4. Organize your clothes by color. Now this might seem like too much to some people, but I promise it makes your closet so much nicer! I do them in rainbow order and go from light to dark; for example, in the blue color family, I start with light blue/chambray and work my way to navy. Then come purples. At the end I do white/grey/black. It makes it not only look pretty, but it's so much easier to find what you're looking for. If I want a white shirt, I got to the white section and all of my options are right there. Easy peasy! 

Hope you enjoyed and that you're leaving feeling inspired to go organize your own closets! :)