Comments on: Reader question: Clothes closet organization

By: Mander

Mander — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:43:24 +0000

I do group my shirts and blouses by sleeve length, and skirts and pants by occasion. It makes it just a little bit easier to see what’s available for a given temperature, and when it’s time to put out-of-season clothes away, they are all in one spot. Beyond that I’m too lazy to sort by color, although I can see that being an advantage.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:43:20 +0000

I organize my closet by sweatshirts;in color, then churchy sweatshirts/ponchos, by color, and then church tops, by color; and then skirts(I have a hanger that has 4 hangers in 1 on it, and I have 3 of those for my skirts, and 3 for my pants which are next. Then I have my tees that I wear the most in order my color; and then on the end I have my concert clothes, as I’m a senior in High school, and actively involved the music dept., [I’ve got my choir dress, dept. shirt I need for BB games; marching band shirt I needed for FB games and competitions, show choir shirt I need for SC competitions, and SC formal outfit, Jazz band formal outfit for comps and concerts, and the list goes on. It takes up approx. 15 hangers all together. Quite sad…

By: Gina

Gina — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:48:11 +0000

I too organize my closet, but just a bit differently than Lisa. I go by color first, then by sleeve lengths within each color. I love an organized closet! I’m actually thinking of switching to Lisa’s method. I think it might be more useful, since now I realize I actually look for the sleeve length first, before the color. Thanks!

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:13:25 +0000

My closet is organized to the point of buying boutique tags to seperate all the different lengths of sleeves and to distiguish between work-out clothes and casual/work clothes. It might seem a little over the top, but when my husband puts away laundry, I know that it will always be the way I want it and that happiness makes it worth it!

By: verily

verily — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:26:50 +0000

I must admit that I’ve very relaxed about my closet organization.

I have always stuck to the same method of organization. Winter sweaters and pants stacked in separate piles on a shelf. Shirts hung together in one section of the rack. Lighter sweaters on another. And jackets on the far end. That’s it. No internal sorting due to sleeve length or color. I don’t have so many clothes that it takes me more than a minute to find what I want.

There’s also a rubbermaid container containing clothes that I really ought to just toss entirely. Like some overweight people, I hang onto my “thinner days” clothes due to some foolish idea that I’d actually want to wear them again when I shed some pounds.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:25:29 +0000

I don’t do a rainbow (though within categories my clothes are roughly grouped by color), but I definitely sort by sleeve length. Dresses on the far left, then skirts, then long-sleeved tops (with subcategories: turtlenecks, sweatshirts, etc.). In the middle, a small section of pants serves as a dividing line. Then on the right are all my short-sleeved (or sleeveless tops), grouped again by subcategory: sleeveless turtlenecks, dressy short-sleeved tops, polo shirts, and so on. On the far right I keep a couple of robes and other hanging miscellany.

I also hang my spouse’s clothes by sleeve length, from bike shirts and T-shirts on the left (following the pants, that is) through polo shirts and short-sleeved dress shirts to long-sleeved dress shirts and pullovers.

I don’t think it’s OCD, it makes clothes selection a lot easier in a varying climate.

By: Dorianne

Dorianne — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 04:24:06 +0000

Just getting my clothes up off the floor has been a monumental achievement of my adult life.

My clean and/or “best” clothes hang in the order they go back in the closet, except for one old sweatshirt that is all that stands between my clothing and the cat bed on top of the deep freeze (which also shares closet space). My previously worn (but still wearable) clothes and many of my casual clothes go on six hooks hung strategically on the wall behind the open bedroom door. Two laundry hampers on the closet floor hold everything else.

By: Aegir

Aegir — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:43:08 +0000

Oh, and I meant to say, it never takes me long to get ready because all my clothes are pretty much the same.

By: Aegir

Aegir — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:41:34 +0000

My ‘closet’ is a big chair I bought a while back. Clean clothes get heaped on top, and dirty clothes get stuffed behind the bedroom door until laundry day. If the big chair is getting roughly more than 30% visible then it’s time for laundry.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:46:38 +0000

Long sleeves, by color, on the top. Short sleeves, by color, on the bottom. Formal/fancy stuff to one side.

Just last week I pulled the lightweight jackets to one side of the long sleevers, so they have their own section now. I have more than I need!

By: Cliff

Cliff — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:21:42 +0000

Yup, me too. My closet is organized so as to maximize getting-to-work-in-the-morning-after-I-oversleep efficiency. Suits here by color, shirts there by category and style, then by color or pattern, pants there by the same, etc. It’s all about getting the “work” of choosing and implementing my stuff (in this case, the clothing) out of the way as quick as possible. Shoes also organized thusly. It’s only a BIT anal to set it up that way in the first place, when you move in. But from there on out it’s actually easier to put things back in the proper place after use and cleaning, than it is to find some random place, since the EMPTY HANGERS are already dangling there in the right place. What a system, no!

By: Nat

Nat — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:58:58 +0000

In writing it sounds crazy, but I use a similar system except I don’t pay that much attention to making rainbows since I rarely have enough of one type of clothing to sort by color. Also, I don’t hang jeans, work out wear, t-shirts, which are separated in sleeve length piles (yes, I decide which one to wear by pulling from the bottom and dresses which are by hemlength rather than sleeve. When I worked as a costumer, we used this system. I got pretty used to it and adapted it to my closet.
Also, I insist slap me upside the head if I ever start doing the winter closet/summer closet thing. I like having everything in the same place so I don’t go crazy looking for stuff during the “transistion” seasons.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:51:59 +0000

Everything hangs in the same direction, tops with tops, bottoms with bottoms, and sleeves are grouped by length in my closet. Which is also an island of sanity amidst a house of chaos and clutter and stuff. Don’t know how I got to this blog, but so far, it is terrific ;D

By: Shayna

Shayna — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:44:40 +0000

I hang short sleeves together, long sleeves in another area, then dresses and skirts and (dress) pants in the tall area of the closet. My hangers face the same direction but I use the rotation method (always pull from one side and then put clean on the other) and donate what I don’t wear at the end of each season.

By: Kris

Kris — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:37:19 +0000

I don’t have OCD and do exactly what Lisa does. I also hang up tank tops, tshirts and all pants. I know myself and I’m an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ girl. If it’s in a drawer, I’ll forget about it. I’m fortunate to have a very large closet so everything has room to hang. Shoes are below on shelves. The only thing in my dresser drawers are underwear, bathing suits, pareos, pajamas and socks. I don’t wear scarfs or hats (except a baseball cap that lives in my car). I have one belt and that’s on a hanger, too. I have two purses. One I use every day and one for formal occasions. I can get dressed in under a minute. That was the goal. I used to be a professional organizer and closets were my speciality.

By: selenium

selenium — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:43:10 +0000

I limit my color palette to mostly black, brown, navy, grey, purples/pink, and white. It helps A LOT. And I hang sleeveless shirts on the right, starting with tanks/camisoles, sleeve length increasing to the left.

Then skirts, dress slacks and dresses. I don’t sweat the color order but i find the length order helpful as I live in Chicago and last week it was 63 and today it is 83. I check the weather every night and every morning. Dress clothes like suits and blazers are on a different rod, mostly due to lack of space.

My top dresser (a medium wide Elfa stack) drawer is socks, the second is bras, the next is “bottoms”, then pantyhose/tights, then scarves/misc and then purses.

By: awurrlu

awurrlu — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:03:25 +0000

This summer I did a major closet re-organization and got rid of a lot of stuff. I added a second rod (like this: http://www.stacksandstacks.com/html/20137_double-hanging-closet-rod.htm but I bought it at Target). At first I was worried about losing the space on the bottom of my closet (which held my hamper), but I was able to still use a smaller hamper below the rod. On the top rod, I have my robe, 2 suits, 6 pairs of nice jeans on hangers (my standard work fare), 10 spring/fall tops, and 14 fine gauge sweaters. (Summer tops are mostly t-shirts, so they go in drawers.) On the bottom rod, I have 6 skirts (for when I have to dress up; they go with my fine gauge sweaters), 2 pair of dress pants (one light and one heavy), and 5 pairs of summer capris (since I don't wear shorts). Except for two pairs of blue jeans, all my clothes are in the black/grey/brown/green range, and they all mix and match reasonably well. When the seasons change, I put all the hangers in the wrong direction so I can see what I haven't worn yet. As I wear something, I reverse the hanger and put it at the rear of the appropriate section, so I don't end up wearing the same thing twice in one week. Like Kaylee, I also have a limited number of hangers. I bought some really fabulous ones (kind of like these: http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=145&PRODID=62780 ), and if I don't have a hanger, I don't buy anything! The dresser (shared with my husband) contains pajamas, long underwear, t-shirts, underwear, socks/tights, and my hiking/kayaking/gym wear. At one point I did the rainbow arrangement (albeit with not much variation given my palette!), but I ended up wearing things in order! Oh, shoes: I have about 18 pairs, and they're in plastic shoe boxes on the top shelf. I took a picture of each pair and put it on the front of the box so I can see what's inside. I let them air out for 24 hours before putting them back in the closet.

By: Morfydd

Morfydd — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:31:25 +0000

I have two small-ish standing wardrobes with shelves on the right.

The everyday clothes wardrobe gets shirts by sleeve length, pants, blazers/sweaters, skirts, one dress. Underwear in pullout baskets on the shelves.

The club-going & formal clothes is similar (though something of a mess right now), with boots and stockings on the shelves.

They’re both in rainbow order, but almost everything is black. And when I’m completely OCD I alternate hanger colors between clothing types.

And, um, a very full Rakku for shoes.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:56:24 +0000

I should note that we rebuilt our closet a while back, and when my wife hung my clothes up, she did the rainbow thing.

It only took about a month for me to completely screw it up, but I didn’t mind because rather than making me feel organized, it made me feel like I had a really boring wardrobe with not enough colors in it.

By: Kaylee

Kaylee — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:08:49 +0000

I organize the walk-in closet that I share with DH into two sections for each of us: tops and bottoms. Beyond that, there’s no organization. I put clean clothes away in the front. That way I know what I wore recently and may choose to wear something that hasn’t been worn in a couple weeks. Less-worn and out-of-season clothes gradually migrate to the back. Our dresser drawers are similarly organized (or unorganized) with recently-worn items on the top.

I don’t have many clothes so it’s never hard finding a particular item. I keep the number of clothes down by limiting the number of hangers. When I buy something new, I remove an item from the closet/drawer that I don’t like anymore.

I guess it’s more important to me not to wear the same outfit 2x in one week than to keep everything color- and season-coded. I do laundry daily for a family of four, so by Thursday none of us can remember what we wore Monday. This system keeps us in check and our wardrobes revolving.