A Closet to Fall for!

I’m refreshing this past post to participate in the Every Girl Link up! Here are my tips to having an organized closet!

After every Texas summer I am always just sitting around anticipating that first cool front that has a big enough kick to inspire me to change my closet from summer to fall. Don’t get me wrong, I love Texas summers but by mid September I’m ready for a change in temperature and clothing options. So this week the temps are dipping into the lower 60’s and the humidity is low so it feels amazing and I even needed a light jacket one morning which was enough to get me motivated.

We have a decent size closet in which I occupy about 2/3 and the hubs has his wardrobe taking up the rest of the precious real estate. We had dressers built into the closet about a year ago and that has been such a great addition. No more running back and forth from the closet to the bedroom to grab items from the dresser.

In order to utilize all of the closet space and have the most hanging space, I store the off season clothes in the extra large ziploc storage bags. Besides the fact that it’s gives me a thrill to suck all the air out of that bag and see if shrink to a quarter of the size, it’s a great way to stash the clothes away without worrying they will be ruined. My husband loves when I pull all these bags down to change seasons….I typically choose some random Tuesday and start before he gets home, break for dinner and then can’t possibly sleep until it is completed. I really should have taken the picture during the chaos but you can see the bags on the top shelf. Cute boxes would definitely be more aesthetically pleasing but I’ve used boxes before and frankly, I can just fit way more up there this way.

The first thing I do is go through all the clothes in the closet and take all summer items off the hangers and fold into a pile for storage and a pile to donate. I then pull down the ziploc bags and pull out the fall-ish items. In Texas it will be December at the earliest before a heavy sweater even crosses my mind so for now they remain in the bags.

Now….after being basically shrink wrapped for the past 6 months, the majority of these clothes go straight to the cleaners. I’d like to say this is because all the clothes are dry clean only but the fact is I really just hate ironing. So let’s pretend a day has passed and the clothes have returned from the cleaners….I would then begin hanging the clothes on my hangers. One thing that can make me want to scratch my eyes out is seeing an entire row of uniform hangers and BAM a wire hanger. I use these huggable hangers from Bed, Bath & Beyond or these huggable hangers from Target. They now come in other fun colors too…mine are all black.

If there are items that I like but do not absolute love, or that I may have “outgrown” due to increased muscle mass of course, I hang the item backwards on the rack. I learned this trick years ago after reading the book It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh. If you have trouble with clutter or especially letting go of things that may have some sort of sentimental meaning you definitely should read this book! Life changing I tell ya. You can see in the picture below there are several dresses with hangers that are flipped backwards. If I wear the item and feel great in it, I turn the hanger back around. A hanger still hanging backwards by the end of the season means the item comes off the hanger and straight into the donation pile. Does this always work? I’d like to say 100% full proof but if I’m being honest there have been several items that have stuck around in hopes of smaller hips in the future.

I hang my dresses by length and sleeve length and then my dress pants all along the same wall. I have dividers on the shelf above for sweaters and t-shirts.

My jackets are all hung together followed by my tops organized first by sleeve length and then by color. Shorts, skirts and sleeveless tops are hung below. My every day tanks are actually rolled and organized in a drawer.

After having our dressers built in, I worked on organizing my accessories. I definitely have gotten much more wear from them after having them out and easily accessible. I’m still not sure this is the best fit but it’s working right now.