Closet Organizing Tips

Closet organizing indicates that you value the simple home improvement of added closet space. Below you’ll find simple ideas to get your closets organized:

A good suggestion for starters is to plan your closet with hanging rods nearest the outside walls. In most cases, this will give you the optimum access to shelves and drawer spaces.

For reach-in closets with double-folding doors, it’s often better to put the drawers in the center where they’re more easily accessible. For a closet with sliding doors, place the drawers on either end of the closet.
Wardrobe Inventory.

Separate your closet into these categories:

-- What you currently wear
-- What you've worn only a few times in the last 12 months
-- What hasn’t even been considered in more than a year

You might want to bag and store clothing from the second category above, and consider donating the things from third. Numerous charities appreciate clothing donations and will even pick them up from your home.

When storing out-of-season items, remember to always clean the items first and store all boxes in a dry place.

Assess the cloths you want to keep in your closet. Think about how much drawer space, hanging and shelf storage you’ll need before you begin shopping for closet organizer kits and design ideas.

Do you share a walk-in closet with a spouse? Make the right side for one person’s wardrobe, and the left side for the other. If you have enough space, the back wall can be shared.

One of the most trendy closet designs of modern home improvement uses drawers or baskets with long verticals of 24" shelves in the center of the side walls, with hanging space on either side.

If you don’t have enough room for such a layout on each side of the closet, but you’d still like shelves, drawers, shoe storage or baskets, plan on using the side walls for hanging space and put a drawer unit on the back wall.

General Closet Organization tips:

Double hanging space of your closet by adding a second rod at 40" from the ground and adjusting the upper rod to 80".

Use your closet doors to create more space by adding over-the-door racks. This space can be used for cap racks, shoe storage, valets, towel racks or general purpose hooks.

To avoid wrinkling, avoid hanging garments too close together.

Use specific hangers in your closet to gain space and store items, like Multiple skirt hangers, multiple slack hangers, belt, scarf, and tie hangers.

To retain the original shape of your sweaters and eliminate hanger marks, it’s usually good to fold them instead of hanging them. New hangers are on the market however, with rounded edges to prevent hanger marks.

As you use up closet space, think about adding garment racks. These come with wheels for easy movement, and many come with covers.

Walk-in closets can be thought of as a series of “reach-ins”. Measure each wall separately and plan your storage wall by wall. Use corner shelving to craft the most of the space you have.

Institute just a few of these closet organizing tips and unleash the full joy of your “intimate space”. You’ll also see that this is one of the simplest forms of home improvement you can undertake.

By Andrew Porter

Bathroom Storage Solutions

If you're lucky enough to have a "guest bathroom", one that isn't used by the family and one where you can always keep clean hand towels hanging for the guests, good for you. For most of us however, we have one or two bathrooms, and they both get a lot of use from the family members on a daily basis. Let's see how you bathroom storage solutions can organize your bathroom so that it's guest ready too.

The one thing that most of us have too much of is lots of bottles of "stuff" sitting around the sink and countertop. Go through these and discard what you don't use on a daily basis, and what only has a drip left in it. Go buy two decorative baskets and have a "his" and "hers". One for his stuff, and one for her stuff. You could keep your toothpaste, hairspray, brush and comb, moisturizer, etc., in a basket that can be simply picked up and moved when guests come, and then put back when you're ready to use them again.

If you like to have magazines in the bathroom don't let them just pile up in a corner next to the toilet, get a nice magazine rack is a good bathroom storage solution.

Next take a look at the inside of the shower. How moldy is that curtain? They cost around $4.00 - buy a new one. Look at the bottles in the shower, they tend to get left in the shower even when they're almost empty. Throw them out and try to streamline the number of bottles in the shower. If you don't have built in shelves around your shower get an organizer that hangs over your showerhead, or one on an extension pole you can put in the corner of the shower.

A cheap way to make your bathroom storage solutions like new is with accessories. Buy a nice shower curtain with a matching rug. You can also get matching towels. If you have limited towel space you can buy a towel rack that hangs on the wall, they come in many different designs. With a nice wall towel rack you can make a display of beautifully colored towels - that you can also use too! Purchase a set of matching bathroom accessories, soap dish, toothbrush holder, cup, liquid soap dispenser.


By Norman Fleming

Custom Closet Organizers

Spring and fall cleaning involves going through the closets in your home that is if you plan to be very thorough. Why not install custom closet organizers once you have emptied out the closet.

It will make your job so much easier in future years. This way when you put something into your closet; it has its own place and you should be able to find it the next time you need it.

Custom closet organizers can be used in just about every closet. You can use one in the bathroom, all the bedrooms, the garage, the basement and any other closet you have in your home.

In addition, the size of the closet does not matter as well. There are various sizes of organizers available. It is important to measure the size of the closet before you purchase the organizer.

Custom closet organizers for bedrooms can consist of a rod to hang clothes, drawers to put items in and hooks for ties or belts. In addition, it can include a shoe cubby for your shoes.

If you install an organizer in your bathroom closet, you may not need hooks or shoe cubbies; however, you may need more drawers for example.

Custom closet organizers used in the pantry are great for storing can goods and dry goods. In addition, you can use hooks to store your pots and pans. Some people use drawers or bins to store various cooking utensils.

So, where can you find a perfect custom closet organizer? Some cities have customized shops that focus strictly on organizing your home. If you do not have a specialty shop like this then most big-box home improvement centers will have a number of styles or types to choose.

Another great place to find or at least research the various custom closet organizers is the internet. You do not have to make your purchase online if you do not want to but it will give you some great ideas.