Your closet is more than just a place to hold your clothes, shoes, and handbags. It’s also more than a private dressing area. The truth is that a well-organized walk-in closet can be a woman’s refuge, or stronghold if you will.
The problem is maintaining the intense level of organization you need to find everything you want as fast or as slow as you want to find it. Rifling through rows and rows of hangers or digging through boxes of accessories is more frustrating than relaxing. Not to mention you can end up wasting too much time looking for the little things you need to complete the perfect outfit for the occasion.
In this article, we will take a closer look at some easy storage solutions for the modern-day woman’s closet, as well as little inexpensive things you can do to enhance the ambiance.
Purging Old & Outdated Clothes
Lets be honest, chances are there are some outfits in your closet that are either overly outdated, simply don’t fit, or were worn to a one-off occasion. It might be hard at first, but getting these clothing items out of the way is a first, and critical step toward getting the space you need to properly organize your closet. There are a few different ways to do this.
Moving Sentimental Items Into Long-Term Storage
Wedding dresses, prom dresses, bridesmaid gowns, and other one-off occasion garments can take up a lot of room in your closet. Though you certainly don’t want to get rid of them. Moving them into a safe, secure long-term storage area, like an alternative closet or climate-controlled storage can give you a lot more room in your main closet. If possible, you might want to consider putting lesser-used clothing items in narrow totes that can be slid underneath your bed.
Host A Garage Sale
Take the clothes you don’t wear and turn them into some quick cash. A garage sale is also a great way to get rid of other unused family items beyond just your old, unwanted, or outdated clothes. You can also sell the things your children have outgrown or pieces of furniture left over from your last redesign.
Donate Unwanted Clothes
Thrift stores and secondhand shops are all too happy to take your gently used clothes and resell them to people who will fall in love with them all over again. Depending on where you donate them and the deftness of your accountant, you might even be able to claim these donations as a tax write-off!
Designing A New Closet Organization Strategy
Now that you’ve made some extra space, it’s time to take it to the next level by designing and implementing a new closet organization strategy. Though every closet and every woman’s needs are different. The following are some organizational systems to consider implementing in your walk-in or wardrobe closet.
Pull Down Closet Poles
They are essentially spring-loaded mechanisms that let you make use of a walk-in closet with exceptionally high ceilings. It essentially gives you an upper rack for lesser-worn clothes or seasonal clothes. When you want to get something you can simply grab a convenient handle to bring the rod down, without having to climb up a shaky ladder.
Adjustable Upper Shelves & Dividers
A lot of walk-in closets have a single upper shelf that sits around five to six feet high. Then the two or three feet above the shelf to the ceiling is left as sort of a blank canvas. Chances are good that you are not going to be able to safely lift up or lower a three-foot-high box. Though adjustable shelves with customizable dividers give you more total square inches for small items, accessories, jewelry, and shoe boxes.
Shoe Display Cubbies
Most women’s closets, be-it a walk-in or a reach-in closet are inundated with shoes. Keeping the shoes in the boxes they came in might be functional, but it hardly lets you see the shoes you want at a glance. One way to make all these amorphous shoes fit together neatly is to install a series of cubbies or adjustable shelves with dividers. This lets you maximize the vertical space, while also keeping all of your favorite pairs easily on display.
Jewelry Display Area
A jewelry box is often a simple, functional way to keep your rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other accessories in their own place. Though it can be hard to find exactly what you want at a glance. Giving yourself a display area for your favorite accessories and daily-wear jewelry not only saves time, but it gives you an area to choose and lay out what you want to wear the next day.
Use Floor Space For Seasonal Storage
The floor space under your hanging clothes tends to be lesser-used real estate in a lot of women’s closets. One of the best ways to utilize this space is to store seasonal items in tote bins. It’s especially handy for foldable items like fall sweaters, or rollable items like wool socks. Even summertime swimsuits can be neatly tucked away until memorial day weekend. This can free up space in your closet as well as in your dresser.
Consider Updating Your Lighting
The closets of just a few years ago were sparsely lit. Some had little more than one or two bare lightbulbs that cast the sort of shadows that can leave even your favorite garments looking flat. A lot of the best woman’s walk-in and wardrobe closets make use of accessory lights.
Sconce Lighting
More common inside of walk-in closets or alongside wardrobe closets, sconce lighting improves overall illumination, and can also help enhance the closet’s ambiance. They also help to dispel some of the unflattering shadows created by directional lights.
Recessed Lighting
Installed into the ceiling recessed or “Canned” lighting can have different casting widths and lengths to provide broad coverage in a woman’s closet. Some are even available with different finishes or shades to enhance the ambiance. Since they are built into the ceiling, recessed lights don’t compromise any of the surrounding storage space.
LED Directional & Under Shelf Lights
Light Emitting Diodes use very little energy and produce negligible heat. They are great for providing directional light in key locations or to accent display areas. Even a single LED light pointing at a jewelry display can be a godsend on an early morning. Some LED light fixtures use so little wattage that they can be battery-powered for months on end. This is great for installing under a shelf to provide light when you need it, without having to run ugly wires under your closet shelves.
