Closet Chaos Prevention

For many, an unorganized, chaotic closet prompts a perpetual cycle of frustration. You cannot find the items you are looking for in the morning, the frantic search for that one pair of shoes leaves the entire closet in disarray, and you know there’s no point in placing items neatly back into the black hole at the end of the day. If this sounds like an all too familiar process, you can benefit from making some changes to the way you go about using your closet. The key to consistent closet organization is prevention. Logic probably tells you that the entire process could have been avoided by knowing where the shoe was in the first place, but of course, acknowledging the problem and putting a solution into practice are very different things.

Is your mentality holding you back? Think of your closet as a functional haven, designed to make your daily life easier. Now look at the contents. Are your trophies from high school tucked behind an anonymous box of who knows what making your life easier? Find alternative storage areas for those items which you never need to access, in order to free up space within your closet and create accessibility to things you do use. You may be able to relocate non closet worthy items to a basement, attic, garage, storage trunk or under bed storage bins.

Designate a place for everything in the beginning. When you clean out your closet, purge outdated, no longer worn items and create a specific place for everything else. This means all of your clothing should fit comfortably on the racks or shelves, each pair of shoes should have its own place and belts should be hung neatly in one area. If you know where that one pair of shoes is kept, you will avoid the hurried process of digging through everything and thus prevent coming home to the contents of your entire closet being strewn about.

In addition to organizing the contents of your closet, give the closet an organized look. If you want an organized closet, there is no avoiding the initial cleaning and organizing process. But if you take extra care to give your closet a streamlined, uniform look, you will be more inclined to manage your closet such that it stays that way. One simple touch that can make a major difference is using matching clothes hangers for all of your clothes. Your wardrobe will hang neatly with each article in line with the next, giving your closet an overall streamlined appearance. Another helpful organization strategy is making sure your shoe storage solution, whether it be a rack, individual boxes or a shelf system, is adequate for holding all of the shoes you own with room to accommodate expansion based on your shoe buying pattern. Having some shoes on a shelf, yet others piled in the floor will likely lead you to toss more shoes into the floor on a tired night. Simply having room for each pair of shoes can prevent the searching through piles caused by going to bed already engulfed in the perpetual closet chaos quandary.

About the Author: Stephen Nickse is the founder of Closet Solutions, a leading provider of quality custom closets in Boston, strategically headquartered in the nation’s design capitol, Boston, Ma. For more information, please visit www.closet-solutions.com.