How I organized my Coat Closet / Shoe Closet

Sometimes what seems like a large project ends up being a simple quick task. For a long time I've been bothered by my entryway coat/shoe closet. It was always cluttered and we could never find what we wanted quickly. It was also a blackhole for hats, gloves and other miscellaneous items.

 
But this past weekend I finally tackled the project. You're asking right now... what made you finally decide to organize this closet. The answer is I had finally hit my breaking point. It had snowed this weekend and my son couldn't find his gloves and hat. We looked all around the house and couldn't find them. I was convinced they had to be in the closet. So, without giving it much thought, I decided it was time to tackle this project. (BTW, His gloves were in his sister's jacket. We still can't find the hat.)

Using the organizing skills I've acquired over the past few years I knew exactly how to handle this project.  I started by removing everything in the closet and sorted it into piles of similar items.

I had a pile for hats, one for gloves and scarves, one for purses and bags, and then I sorted all of the shoes into matching pairs.

Once all of the contents of the closet were removed and sorted into piles I began the purging process. I created two additional piles. One for items I wanted to donate to Goodwill and one for items that needed to be thrown away (bent and broken hangers fell into this category). After the purging process was complete I had about 50% less stuff that had to go back into the closet than had been pulled out of the closet. NOTE: In my opinion getting rid of stuff you no longer need is the most important step in getting organized.

With the purging process complete I was almost ready to start putting everything back into the closet. Before I put anything back I took a minute or two to think about what wasn't working well in the closet and ended up coming up with four key things that needed improved.

1. The closet was poorly lit
2. Hats and gloves were not quickly accessible
3. There were too many coats
4. We still had too many shoes

I solved each of these problems very easily

1. I went to Lowe's Home Improvement and purchased a $9 light and mounted it on the side wall using 2 screws.
2. I decided to keep all of the hats and gloves in a bag that would hang on the inside of the door
3. Coats that were not worn frequently got moved to a less used storage closet.
4. Since it was winter I put summer shoes into a clear Clever Store tote and moved them into the garage.

Solving those four key issues were simple but very important to the long term success of keeping this closet organized.

Once the lighting was installed and the summer shoes stored away I put everything back into the closet, took a step back and smiled at my completely organized closet is less than 1 hour.

 

Once again, another area of the home that's been improved with just a little bit of effort.

Sara's Little Girl's Closet Makeover

Today's post comes from Sara, who works for our PR agency, Fleishman Hillard, in Atlanta.   She is a great friend of Rubbermaid and volunteered to write a guest post for us about her makeover for her daughter's room.  Thanks, Sara!

----- 

In preparation for a new baby, I needed to move my daughter into the guest room and reorganize the closet to make it more kid friendly, allowing her to access her clothes and shoes. I used the Rubbermaid Homefree Closet line which provides the opportunity to adjust the shelving heights as your child grows – so the closet grows with your child.
There were a ton of new clothes and boxes of my old toys already in the closet, so the job started by removing everything from the closet and then removing the old closet system. On the right side of the old closet, the upper clothing rack was very high, and being 5-feet 2-inches tall, it was very difficult for me to access anything on that rack, not to mention there was only a small area for long hanging clothes. However, since my daughter will not have very long dresses for several more years, there was a lot of wasted space in that area.

The Rubbermaid Homefree Closet system came with everything I needed except the drill and screwdriver, and the instructions were very clear. I picked a design which was somewhat a hybrid between a 5-foot and 6-foot closet example, because my closet is 5 ½-feet long. I was excited about all the shelving options, so we could make the most of the closet space.


Since I was nine months pregnant, my older brother volunteered to help and it only took a few hours to complete the entire closet. I was very happy with how the closet improved the space utilization of the closet. Instead of wasted space where the long hanging space used to be, there are now shelves which are currently used for my daughter’s shoes and books. The hanging space goes all the way across the closet and on most of the lower half of the closet. I love this feature because I can put all the clothes for the season on the lower half for my daughter to access, and I can shop sales and put clothes she will grow into on the upper half of the closet. I also unpacked my old toys and put them at the top of the closet for fun – eventually she can play with them too.


My daughter loves that she can easily access her shoes (she’s already really into shoes). And, I like the Rubbermaid Homefree Closet system so much, I am planning to redo my closet and my new baby’s closet as well. We are going to be Rubbermaid Homefree all the way!

Ultimate Man Closet

Before the holidays, I wrote a post about my friend Ryan's closet.  He recently moved and I told him I would help him get set-up in his new house.  It is the second year I have done this, with my first being my friend  Randi's closet which was done last December

Thanks to everyone who provided tips for the makeover.  There were two in particular that I modeled the closet after:  

The first came from Taulpaul who said...I typically hang everything but sweaters and t-shirts. If I were to redo my closet, I would find a way to bring the shoes to a middle tier in the closet. They are hard to get to through the heavy coats and pants when they are on the floor.

The tonya said...I think especially for men it's beneficial to have the most you can hanging so it's easy to flip through without creating a mess and easily encourages them to hang stuff back up. I prefer a pants on the bottom and shirts on top 2 rows of hanging space to maximize space.

Set-up was a breeze.  As much as I like re-organizing things, it is nice to start from scratch!  Also, Ryan had used a dresser for most of his tee shirts and jeans, so we really only had to organize the work attire.

We used a Homefree Closet System as the base for the project.    This system is flexible, so we were able to modify and change things around as we were installing to be able to set the closet up exactly how we wanted it.  We used a Deluxe, because it includes 2 extender brackets that allow you to go down further in the closet to hang more shelving which we knew was important with the shoes.

In the end, this was the final design:
 

 

Although I am hesitant to admit this (Betty and our closet product engineer might tease me), the biggest lesson I learned was to follow the installation directions.   The instructions indicate how high to start the top horizontal rail (which is the basis for the system), but we hung it a little bit lower to make more room at the top of the closet.   I have done this before and it worked out fine.  However, I am 5 ' 2", and my clothes are a just a wee bit shorter than Ryan's who is probably over 6' tall.  Luckily, it ended up working out just perfectly, but if I were to do it again, I would start at the exact point the directions told us to avoid a little bit of the stress. 

Thanks all for your help and I can't wait to see what next year's New Years Eve makeover will be!

Pantry Sorrows - Part One

I really like where I live. The only thing that consistently drives me crazy is - THE PANTRY!

My roommates and I have a small kitchen but the pantry is actually a pretty good size. There's just some things that need to change.

1. The shelving is ridiculous! Things keep falling through the wires and falling over. Oh why contractors do you put wire shelving in a pantry?

This is a picture of bottles falling through the wires!

2. There's a pipe that sticks out in the pantry. The means in the middle of one shelf (my shelf to be exact) the shelving is cut out and you can't use a good portion of the shelf.

3. There's no rhyme or reason for what goes where (okay there is a small bit but not enough).

Random food stacked together

All the shelves - I have to confess the bottom (and the worst shelf) is mine :(

We are planning a full gutting out of the pantry and a fresh start. However, I do not know where to go after we rip out the shelves. All I know is we need a place for the dog food and recyclables bag. Any suggestions or words of advice?

2nd Annual New Years Day Closet Makeover

You may remember that last year, I did a series on helping my friend Randi get her crazy closet under control.  I am happy to report that it still continues to be organized and tidy thanks to help from all of you in setting it up for continued organization!

Randi's Closet Makeover Series  - Part 1: The problem Part 2: The makeover process Part 3: The end

So, in continuing the tradition of helping a friend get organized every New Years Day, this year, my annual project goes to my friend Ryan's house.  

Unlike most makeovers I have helped with in the past of improving organization, this one is a bit different.... there is nothing there to start with!!!  A blank canvas, if you will....

You see, Ryan is in the processing of moving into a new home.  I told him I would help him tackle the master closet and set it up to be the ultimate man closet.

 

Details About the Closet - 80 3/4 inches wide x 25 inches deep (about 8 feet tall).   There is a secondary closet in the master that can be used for linens and miscellaneous items so this closet we are tackling will serve as the primary in-season clothing closet.

Details About Ryan - Ryan works a professional job, so has a mixture of business casual work clothes (no suits) and casual clothes.   He wants to make sure there is plenty of room for shoes and hanging pants as well.

So, with this "blank canvas" for tons of organizational creativity, what suggestions do you have for me to help create the ultimate closet for Ryan?  

A few thought starters:
Have you seen any nice details that have been done in a that are helpful in organizing things for men?
How do you typically lay out clothing - pants on the bottom / shirts on top ? pants on racks?
How do you typically store shoes?

I would appreciate any help or insight you have!

Laundry "Room" Makeover – The Plan

 
Our first house we lived in had a proper laundry room. We bought our very first washer and dryer from Sears, BARELY missing the innovation, style and space efficiency of front loading machines. These machines always worked great, especially in the space we had them in.. til we moved. Our current house is in the city and is a lot smaller space than our previous house. We don't have a Laundry Room, we have a Laundry Closet. I've been living with the mess and general craziness of having a Laundry Closet for a few years now and am looking to make a change.

I always figured I would just purchase a new set, ones that stack, and fit the space better. But the ones I have work great. So instead of wasting my money on new ones, I figure the space just needs an bit of an overhaul and some organization. I found some good laundry tips on Blissfully Domestic. One of their tips I already use: several bins designated for clothes sorting. Does anyone else have any good tips or ideas on how to get a humble Laundry Closet to function like a Laundry Room? Or other good laundry org tips?

Here is my "Before" pic...
 

  

Linen Closet

According to my organizational to-do list (check out that post...its one of my best) the Fall was the time to face my linen closet. A year earlier I'd organized it with the Rubbermaid Configurations Closet line which gave me the flexibility to use the space differently in the Summer versus the Winter.

The problem was that since our wedding, my wife and I continued to stuff it with every piece of linen we had. Even though we started out with a system (towels here, dish clothes there) it never seemed to last the week. The result was a jumbled mess that was never organized and always frustrating.

 The problem was simple. Too much stuff. Our desire to keep everything at our fingertips was actually sentencing us to perpetual clutter.

So we started over.

We figured out what we used most often and what quantity we needed. For example, we decided to keep two sets of bath towels in the closet and not the seven that we owned. We decided to keep four dishtowels handy instead of the twelve we'd accumulated.

This process clearly exposed the areas where we had too many duplicates and allowed us to confidently banish excess to the "Good Will" pile. In addition we set up guest totes with complete sets of towels and sheets. This way when people were coming, we could easily pull up a tote and get what we needed as opposed to having to search through various boxes. At the same time, these items didn't clog up our closet the 95% of the time we were guest-free.

The result was dramatic.

The lesson here is simple. Resist the tendency to keep as much stuff as possible in your high traffic living areas. Think intelligently about what you use and how often you use it.

Space is precious....protect it.

New Home for my Necklaces

Up until a short time ago, I kept all of my necklaces in my travel jewelry case. I didn't have a good place to keep them, and for the last five years I traveled enough where it made sense to just keep them in my travel case so I didn't have to unpack/repack them each weekend. A while ago I started to hang them on our medicine cabinet in our bathroom. 

Even though it looks like kind of a mess, I could easily see my necklaces and choose each day which one I wanted to wear. Because we don't get into our medicine cabinet very often, it was not that big of a deal to have them hanging on the door. Although once in a while either I would knock them off, or I would hear them crash if my husband knocked them off....and they would fall to the counter or the floor. After I made sure nothing broke, I would put them right back up there. 

Last weekend I finally got sick of having this mess of necklaces displayed in our bathroom...and as you can see, it really looked like a tangled mess of jewelry. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me until now, but I was ready to change it...

 

We had some 3M Command hooks in our junk drawer, and I think they have been there since we moved in to our house a year ago. That was the best thing I could think of at the time, so I got them out and cracked them open. On the label it says each hook holds up to a 1/2 pound, so I figured my necklaces would be ok on the hooks. There are hooks that hold up to 5 pounds and more, so if you needed these for another, more heavy-duty job, I'm sure there is a hook out there! The hooks are easy to put up, and they don't leave any surface damage. 

I wanted to get the necklaces out of sight, but they still needed to be easy to access and easy to see each one. I decided to put these hooks on the inside of our linen closet door in our master bathroom. 

 

I tried to space them out evenly (and didn't really succeed, but no biggie, right?). We had two 3-packs of hooks, so I figured I would use all 6 hooks so I could spread out my necklaces.

 

Once my hooks were up, I was ready to get my necklaces moved from the medicine cabinet to their new home. I even organized my necklaces by color: one hook for gold, one hook for silver, one hook for black and so on. It was a simple solution, and it took me 15 minutes to do. I will say there are a lot of good (and inexpensive) organizing tips online for jewelry. I found some great ones at thriftyfun.com that I just might put into action. Here is my final outcome of my organized necklaces. Utensil hooks aren't just for utensils!

 

Garage Sale Results

We had a beautiful day for our garage sale and we have a little beautiful cash in our pockets. 

 
 
Helpful hints:

• Serious garage and yard salers get up with the roosters. Be set up by 6:30 AM.
• Ask a couple neighbors to join in and split the cost of a newspaper advertisement.
• Create bright visible signs.
• Have cash to make change.
• Display items in categories like sports, toys and electronics.
• Have a power source so electronics can be running so customers can have better confidence to buy.

 
 
Overall we’re happy with our results. We have a couple hundred dollars to spend on shelving to customize our closets. Rubbermaid (link) will help us make that an easy task, especially now that we’ve cleaned them out.

Importantly, we had a plan for what to do with the items that didn’t sell:

• Consignment stores are growing in popularity (link). The prom dresses and suits will go there.
• The comforter sets and file cabinet went to Goodwill. Our local store as an easy drive-thru with nice people to unload the car and give you a receipt for tax purposes. So easy!
• The men’s clothes went to our neighbors church ministry to help needy families and we got another tax receipt.

We have clean closets, a tidier garage and we helped our community. We feel pretty good about that.

Pre-Garage Sale

We've been really busy with college visits and out-of-town guests, but we’re finally getting organized for our Garage Sale.

My husband and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the garage and miscellaneous shelves/storage areas in the house while I weeded through closets, one by one.

My husband did a good job cleaning up some dusty furniture, file cabinets and sports equipment no longer in use. My daughter definitely had an overstock of baby tees and blouses she could part with. I found a ½ dozen prom and bridesmaid dresses and a full dozen of nice dress slacks my husband hasn’t worn since we got married.

     
 

Combine that with 3 sets of old dishes, 4 sets of matching bedding, a small library of paperback books, a TV, boombox and stereo and I think our driveway is full.

We now have an almost empty closet we can now use for seasonal clothing. 
And remember the teenagers room? Messy room   Look at it now!

 

This is exciting!  We bought in-expensive dot stickers at the office supply store to price everything and bright neon cardboard for signs. I’ll let you know how it goes.