If there’s never enough room in your closet, it’s probably because you’re not a very organized person. If that is the case (and it is, you have to admit it!), there are a few quite genius ways to organize your closet on a budget. As long as you stick to the plan, finding your favorite necktie in the morning will no longer be a hassle. Also, don’t forget to keep the closet dry and clean by using homemade mothballs (we’ll teach you how to make them yourself).
1. T-shirts
It’s a proven fact that folding your t-shirts take up more room than rolling them.
However, if you don’t want your beloved t’s to look all wrinkly when you pull them out of your dresser, we suggest you fold them carefully and then arrange them by color and pattern (monochromes on the right, prints on the left, for example). This way, it will be a lot easier for you to pick a t-shirt in the morning, especially if you’re in a hurry.
Another thing you should consider is storing your t-shirts in a dresser and not a closet. This way, you’ll really make the most of the space.
Sometimes, when you have to put some clothes in the closet, you discover that the shelf if too deep, so you layer everything: some clothes go in the back and some in the front. And as they say: out of sight, out of mind. Who’s going to find that awesome green t-shirt that you stacked in the back three months ago?
2. Shirts and office attire
If you have a job that require a more formal attire, you should really pay attention to your shirts and dress pants. Always clean and press them, then put them on a hanger in the closet. This way it will be easier for you to put together an outfit in the morning. What not to do: hang too many shirts and blazers in the closet.
If you can look through them, they are too tight together. Try not keep about 10 shirts and 3 blazers on the hanger, if the closet doesn’t allow you to display all of them. Every couple of weeks, take these blazers out and put some new ones. You can keep the spare pieces in a travel suitcase under the bed, for example.
3. Make use of your closet doors
There are two types of people in this world: the ones who throw overcrowd their closet doors with scarves, sunglasses, neckties, belts and purses and the ones who don’t use the door at all thinking it would look bad and make it difficult to open and close the closet door. Why would anyone not use their closet door when this is such a genius way to organize your closet?
First of all, you can screw in a few doorknobs and use them to hang your neckties or hangers containing scarves and hats. This doesn’t mean you can make a mess of this spot. Try using your door for objects that are not very heavy (like purses, for example!) and everything should be fine!
4. What to do with your shoes?
If you are a man, you probably don’t own a gazillion pairs of shoes, which is great, because you don’t need a lot of room to store them. You can simply lay them down in your closet and you’re done. But if you are a woman and a fashionista, things change. A good idea would be to never ever keep your shoes with your clothes.
Just nail a few wood boards to the wall near your closet and display all your shoes there. I don’t suppose you’d want to keep them under your bed. I mean, you’re probably proud of your collection and want to show it off.
And this is another genius way to organize your closet: make use of your inner walls, if you can. This means that you’ll nail wood boards inside the closet and take advantage of the vertical space. If that’s not enough for you, back to our first plan: convert a whole wall into a home for your beloved walkers.
5. When your closet is not big enough
Yes, we get this question a lot. What do you do when you have too many clothes and no room for them? First of all, you could sell some of your clothes – I’m sure you haven’t worn some of them in more than a couple of years, so why not make some money off them? Either sell them on eBay of organize a garage sale.
If that doesn’t solve your problem, how about keeping only your seasonal clothes in? For example, at the beginning of every season, you could take out the old clothes and put it the new ones that are more temperature’ appropriate.
In the meantime, the other ones can be kept in boxes under your bed, in the attic (only if there are no rodents or bugs present!) or in a room that you’re not using at the moment. You could also place your clothes in plastic bags and vacuum all the air out of the bags. The problem is that your clothes will most likely wrinkle pretty bad.
6. What to do with that empty space above your closet
If your closet is not as tall as your wall, you probably have this weird-looking space between the closet and the ceiling that you don’t really know what to do with. If you’re thinking about displaying your hats there, be careful: this spot is very likely to accumulate dust within hours. Unless dusting is your favorite spare time activity, we suggest you try something else.
First of all, try a different color above your closet and place a few faux flower planters, for example. Another idea would be to create a box big enough to cover the entire space and use it for your scrapbooks, photo albums or vacation souvenirs.
My favorite idea is to attach a mirror on the wall, above the closet and place something nice in front of it, like a few really cool lamps. This will really brighten up the room and make it a lot easier for you to see what’s inside the closet, when you open it.
7. Maximizing your closet space
Ever noticed that there is that weird space between your shoes and shirts in the closet and wished you could something about it? Say no more, say no more! Grab a few soda can tabs and use them to attach your hangers together, like in this picture. This way, you will double the number of shirts you have on display and also make use of that space that was bothering you up until now.
8. Keeping your closet fresh and clean
Let us talk about mothballs. In case you didn’t already know, one of these genius ways to organize your closet on a budget consists of keeping your clothes fresh. There’s no surprise that mothballs contain chemicals bad for your health, so here’s a recipe to help you prepare your own insecticide at home.
Here’s what you need: dry lavender flowers, essential oils and a few squares of fabric. Pour the essential oil on the lavender flowers (2-3 drops for every spoon of flowers), mix everything and then divide this aromatic combo into equal parts. Place the flowers on the fabric squares and tie together the corners of the fabric to form tiny bags. Add a piece of string to help you attach the bag to the hangers and that’s it! Renew the bags every couple of weeks.
9. What do I do with my bags?
If you like your home to shook sharp and don’t really enjoy exposing everything, this might be a tough challenge for you.
What to do with all my bags, when there’s no room in my closet and I hate seeing them around the room? Easy: take a few hangers, use the soda can tabs and that’s it. You can store up to 5 purses on one hanger, so unless you own around 50 such items, then you should be just fine.
Another idea would be to just nail in your closet’s walls a few stable hangers and use them.
10. Where do I put my accessories?
We can’t talk genius ways to organize your closet on a budget without discussing accessories. Whether we’re talking about sunglasses, hats and so on, we all need to make room for them. Unless you put them in boxes and then spend a huge amount of time to find them (and be totally OK with that!), then something needs to be done.
For example, your scarves can be placed on a hanger (one hanger holds up to 20 scarves and 10 neckties), your necklaces can be wrapped around a scarf and your bracelets can easily be added to your clothes hangers. But if you don’t want them to be scattered everywhere, display them on your door. On the outside. You can screw in a few nails or even small boxes for this purpose.
11. Do I really need to put labels on everything?
No, although labels are very useful. Some people prefer to establish ahead of time what they’re going to wear every day of the week. But that doesn’t always go according to the plan, right? You don’t need to add tags or labels to your clothes, but to the boxes and bags containing them-yes! This way, you’ll know where your ski suit is without going through all your things. It doesn’t hurt to add a list of things to every box. For example: Winter Clothing (ski suit, my warm scarf, black and white knickers etc.)
Another cool and genius ways to organize your closet on a budget and also your clothes:
- Once a year, take all your clothes out of the house and let them be blown by the wind for a couple of hours. This will give you room to clean the house while also refreshing your old clothes. Some of them are probably hiding in boxes most of the time and start to smell like…well, plastic.
- Ironing destroys your clothes. If you want your shirts to last for years and years, take them out of the drier right away and air dry them for a few minutes (yes, use a rope if you have to!).
- If you love clothes, try investing in quality rather than quantity. As long as you have a few solid pieces that can be combined in many ways, you don’t really need a huge closet.
- Do laundry every 4-5 days in the winter and 3 days in the summer. This way, you’ll have your shirt nice and clean when you need it and you’ll also avoid that mildew smell.
Do you know any genius ways to organize your closet on a budget and take care of your clothes? If you do, please share!
