How to Organize a Closet: 11 Easy Closet Organization Ideas to Maximize Space

We all want that Sharon Stone in Casino closet experience – minus the breakdown scenes – but there just isn’t that much closet space to go around. 

But that doesn’t mean you can’t wake up to an easy-access wardrobe in a clutter-free closet. By employing our clever closet organization ideas, you’ll be feeling like the queen (or king) of Las Vegas in no time.

Our step-by-step guide on how to organize a closet reveals the perfect combination of professional organizer tips and interior design hacks that can organize a closet of any size or shape. 

Put these expert organization inspirations into practice on the cheap and easy, regardless of whether you’re here to learn how to organize a walk-in closet or how to organize a small closet you can’t step into. 

We’ll also share some secrets on scoring first-month-free storage deals that can help free up some closet space. So, let’s roll right into step 1!

1. Start by Purging Your Closet

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The first step toward cultivating extra storage space is to purge that cluttered closet. This means completely emptying your closet. Remove all clothing items, closet shelving, mirrors, and any other storage accessories so the closet is completely empty. 

Spoiler alert: the closet organization idea here is that you’re going to clean the entire closet from top to bottom and then clean each item as you put it back in. 

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! We’ll start this process by organizing everything you take out of the closet into five piles. 

Your first pile is all your closet and organization accessories, mirrors, shelves, shoe organizers, and storage bins – which you’ll empty out of any articles of clothing. All clothing items will be organized in the following four piles:

• Keep Pile: Make a Keep Pile during the purge. Your Keep Pile contains all the articles of clothing you aim to keep active in your wardrobe. 
• Sell Pile: Make a Sell Pile during your purge. Your Sell Pile is made up of any and all items you can sell or trade-in for credit at a vintage shop, thrift store, or online. 
• Donate: Also make a Donate Pile during the purge of your closet. Your donate pile contains any items you know you won’t wear again that might be hard to sell because they’re common, not trending, out of season, out of style, etc. 
• Trash/Discard: Finally, make a trash pile during the purge. These are the discardable items you know you won’t wear again, but they’re too worn, damaged, stained, or broken to even donate. 

Do your best to make your trash pile your lightest pile. We stress prioritizing selling/donating rather than throwing clothing away since the average person produces nearly 100 million tons of textile waste per year. Consider the amount of work you want to put into selling clothes. If there are types of clothing that will be easier to sell during a particular season, like a ski jacket, consider putting it in storage until it’s time to broker the deal. 

Before reloading your closet with your keep pile clothing, we suggest detail cleaning your accessories and all the clothes you plan on keeping and selling and then cleaning your empty closet from top to bottom.

• Dust closet doors, walls, and all your closet shelving. 
• Clean your closet mirrors with your favorite glass cleaning solution – the more non-toxic and natural, the better. 
• Vacuum or sweep and mop your closet floor. 

Finally, we suggest making one more pass through the keep pile of clothes before you put them back in the closet. Make sure you’re going to wear everything you’re keeping and sell or donate clothing items you honestly won’t wear

2. Create and Use a Closet System for Hanging Your Clothes

Now that your closet has been totally emptied and thoroughly cleaned, it’s time to restock it with your keep pile. But we’re not just shoving your wardrobe back in the way it came out. Starting from an empty and purged state allows us to implement a brand-new closet system as we go. 

To properly organize a closet and maximize space, we suggest organizing any and all hung-up items based on one of the following three parameters:

• Color Coding: Organizing your hang-up items by color is a great option for those who wear a wide variety of colors. A color-coding closet system not only boasts the bold glamour of a Scorsese movie scene but also allows you to piece together a matching wardrobe.
• Type of Clothing:  Another option is to organize your hanging clothing by type. This closet organization idea puts like with like, meaning that short-sleeve shirts go together, as do long-sleeve shirts, pants, dresses, shorts, etc. You might even go as far as putting button-ups with button-ups, wool with wool, and cotton with cotton – it’s your closet!
• Event type: Another great closet system is separating clothes according to the occasion or event the items are intended for. This method entails hanging all your casual, work, outdoor, formal, social, traditional/religious regalia items together.

3. Make Sure You Have Proper Storage Solutions

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Once you’ve got your keepers hung up and your closet system in place, the next stop on our journey toward extra space is to compartmentalize all the bulkier items you can’t hang up. 

From camping supplies to jewelry to that stellar shoe collection, implementing closet storage solutions can save a ton of space. 

If you’re here to learn how to organize a walk-in closet, this may mean closet shelves with labeled storage boxes or storage bins or a dresser with drawer organizers. If you’re researching how to organize a small closet,  you’ll likely benefit more from hanging storage solutions and hook organizers. 

Here are some of our favorite closet storage ideas:

• Shelves/Racks – If you’ve got vertical space to spare, installing wooden shelving and wire racks is a great way to utilize any empty wall space.  We suggest wire shelves for any clothing, as the air can pass through the grating and keep your clothes fresh. 
• Hanging Organizers – First of all, you can install multiple closet rods if the closet is tall enough for the double-hang rod technique. Put one closet rod toward the top of the closet for less frequently used items and another in the middle. Use hanging closet organizers and hanging shoe storage organizers for accessories, and install hanging hooks on any wall or door surface you’re not using. 
• Drawer Dividers and Drawer Organizers- You can maximize any drawer space by rolling pants and bulky sweaters and utilizing drawer inserts and jewelry organizers for any accessories. 
• Shoe Rack – Whether you use a hanging shoe rack, a vertical shoe rack, or a wall-mounted shoe rack, a shoe rack is the slickest way to organize all those pairs of shoes in style. 
• Bins/Baskets – Storage boxes, baskets, and storage bins for clothes come in a variety of sizes. Storage containers are another great closet storage idea for those rolled-up bulky items, scarves, and gloves, especially if you don’t have the extra drawer space to spare. Stackable boxes are the best option for small closet organization – clear boxes help locate stored seasonal items like gloves when the cold creeps in unannounced. Finally, mesh hampers and collapsable mesh storage boxes allow clothes to breathe. Be sure to stack the items you use most often on top.

4. Add Labels to Storage Bins

If you’ve got multiple bins stacked in that fancy, like-new closet of yours, then the next step in our closet makeover process is labeling all your storage bins, so you’re not digging through your wardrobe box by box for a specific clothing item. 

Adding labels helps you to know exactly what’s in each bin, especially if you organize your bins by types of clothing. We suggest using reusable labels so you can tweak and adjust your closet organization ideas as needed. 

5. Store Seasonal Clothing in Your Storage Unit, Luggage or Under Your Bed

Any seasonal clothing – items of clothing like winter jackets that are intended for a specific season – will take up space, especially in the off-season.

Instead of storing all four months’ worth of clothing in the closet at the same time, keep only what you’ll need. In the summertime, you might keep one pair of gloves, a sweatshirt, and a scarf for a random cold rainy day. But your zero-degree winter jacket won’t be needed for a few more months. 

One of our favorite organization hacks is storing inactive seasonal clothing under your bed, either in an extra suitcase or storage bins. Another option is to use our handy Sparefoot storage locator tool to find cheap, climate-controlled storage facilities in your area. 

Having a self-storage unit nearby opens up all kinds of new closet organization ideas and options. And storing any items you don’t use often off-site frees up valuable closet space.

6. Ensure Your Closet Has Proper Lighting

There is no shortage of stylish lighting options you can install in your closet, from hanging lights to lamps to fluorescents to backlights to wall-mounted push lights. 

Get creative! Proper lighting is essential for seeing all the items in your closet through tired eyes in the wee hours of the dark morning. And stylish lighting is also a cheap and easy way to up your closet’s glamor factor. 

7. Consider Using Curtains Instead of a Door if Your Closet Space is Small

If your closet is deep enough, you can install hooks and door racks. But if your closet is shallow, every inch of closet space counts. 

If you’re wondering how to organize a small closet, one surefire way to maximize your closet floor space is by getting rid of your closet door altogether. Using curtains instead of a door space can add a few inches of depth and floor space. 

You can even extend your closet out a few inches by installing curtain rods above the door that extend a few inches out from the wall.

8. Take Inventory of Everything

Accompanying the visual record of all the items you’re organizing with a written inventory can establish a baseline for any future changes. 

Even just writing it all out once can create a working mental framework you can use to track seasonal clothes and items you’re not wearing as much, prevent you from buying duplicate garments, and help you plan your outfits ahead of time.

9. Get Matching Clothes Hangers

Once you’ve got your closet system in place and you’ve done some tweaking based on real-world testing, you’ll have a better idea of how many hangers you’ll need and what types of hangers are most useful to your system.

Wooden hangers, for example, work best for delicate garments, as wooden or padded hangers help to retain the shape of delicate items. Velvet hangers prevent creases and slipping, and flocked hangers are more effective for hanging lightweight clothing. 

Once you have a solid idea of how many hangers – and what types – you need for everything you own plus any future additions, you can secure an adequate amount of hangers. 

Now, you get to decide if you want to flex your creative brain muscles and buy matching colored hangers or different colored hangers for all your different clothing categories. 

10. Utilize Wall Space for Additional Storage

Another effective closet organization idea you can employ is to take advantage of any and all empty wall space. We’ve already covered the benefits of stackable bins and wire shelving, but wall hooks and hook racks are yet another closet storage idea you can use to save some hanging space. Wall hooks are a great way to store hats, scarves, purses, or belts.

11. Store Heavy Items at the Bottom of the Closet

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Last but not least, once you’ve got your hangers sorted and all your bins organized and labeled, it’s time to assemble the packing order. We suggest you put those storage bins and storage boxes you organized earlier on the bottom of the closet underneath your hanging clothes. This saves wall space for hooks or shelving, as well as shelving space for folded clothes, jewelry trays, and lighter storage boxes. 

But wait. Once we’ve manifested our extreme closet makeover, how can we be sure to maintain our sweet, sweet, organized closet? 

How To Maintain an Organized Closet

Ok, so you’ve got an understanding of how to organize a closet to pull from, as the closet organization ideas we’ve discussed so far have laid a strong foundation. But routine maintenance is vital to sustaining an organized closet. 

Routinely Organize and Tidy Your Closet

To maintain the pristine storage space you’ve achieved through this closet organization project, set a weekly or bi-weekly schedule for cleaning, tidying, and organizing your like-new closet.

Declutter Regularly

Audit your wardrobe and update your closet inventory regularly. Repeat step 1 on a somewhat regular basis and declutter your closet. Just like you did during your master purge, this maintenance step involves combing through your wardrobe and donating or selling anything you haven’t been wearing. This will help you reclaim both your physical and mental space.

Pro Tip: Hang everything up inside out. As you wear each item and wash it, flip it so the inside is back inside. Anything left inside out after a few months of changing outfits can be sold or donated. 

Use Storage Options Wisely

Keep your shoe racks, bins, and drawers clean and organized. Rethink your strategies as your inventory transforms, reorganizing your storage solutions as needed for optimal storage and organization. 

Rotate Seasonal Items

Make sure you are properly rotating seasonal clothing so any clothes you are not wearing for specific seasons are stored away in bins, in your storage unit, or under the bed. Again, this is your chance to utilize that bulky suitcase by repurposing it as a seasonal clothing storage container! 

Consider Investing in Vacuum Sealed Bags

If you’ve got any clothing items you can’t part ways with for sentimental or practical reasons but that you also don’t wear very often consider storing them in vacuum-sealed bags.  

Ready to Implement Your Closet Organization Ideas? SpareFoot’s Storage Solutions Can Help

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The closet organization process starts by emptying out your closet, cleaning the empty space, and then organizing all your items into keep, sell, donate, and trash piles. 

Our closet organization ideas start with implementing a storage system, such as organizing clothes by color, type, or use occasion.

Hook your closet up with effective but stylish lighting, and label all your storage bins for swift wardrobe access. Use curtains instead of doors to extend your closet out and increase your closet floor space, and store seasonal items like bulky winter sweaters and ski jackets in an extra suitcase under your bed or in your personal storage unit. 

Keep in mind that while our step-by-step guide on how to organize your closet encourages you to be scrappy and creative, it’s never a good idea to cut corners. 

If you shove too many items into such a small space, you risk creasing and ripping your delicates and restricting the airflow, which can cause mold. 

If your wardrobe is compromised in the process, our closet organization steps are rendered useless –but Sparefoot is here to help!

Simply enter your zip code, city, or address into our handy SpareFoot storage search tool, and you’ll find all the best storage options in your area.

With more than 20,000 storage facilities in all 50 states, SpareFoot offers the nation’s largest selection of storage options in one place. Our search tool lets you view our results based on search parameters like storage deals. So enter your zip code now and check out storage units in your area that’ll give you the first month free!

Michael Ta’Nous

Michael Ta’Nous is a full-time writer who works and lives with his wife in Taos, New Mexico. “Mikey” spent his early twenties living either out of a van as a touring musician or out of a backpack on motorcycle trips writing from cafes–these rigorous adventure years polished him into a master packer. In addition to managing storage units full of catering supplies and outdoor gear professionally, Michael has used storage units as a band rehearsal space and a motorcycle garage.