Clever Space Saving Tips for Your Closet

1) Get rid of anything you have not worn in a year. Plan to store out-of-season clothing in another closet, garage, or in a container on a high shelf. A rolling garment rack is also a good idea for getting opposite season clothes out of the current rotation.

2) Measure the closet. Remember to assess square feet, utilizing interior wall space, the backs of doors and floor space. Make drawings of where everything could go. Try a few different ideas and enlist help from your spouse, friends or family. Sometimes they will come up with arrangement ideas that you haven't thought of. Bring the drawings and measurements with you if you shop for storage containers. Adjust your drawings if you are inspired by bins or baskets while you are there.

3) Get creative with making space. If you have a lot of shoes, you may need lots of storage for them. But, that doesn't mean that they will actually take up a lot of space. You can install cubby shelves up the interior front side of the side walls. This way, the shoes will be lined up the front corners of the closet in front of your shelves or hanging clothes. You can easily store shoes sixteen pairs high, two wide, on both sides of the closet. That's sixty four pairs of shoes stored neatly in order without taking up hardly any space!

4) If you need more room up front for cubby shelves, you may be able to move your hanging bar back closer to the back wall. Many closets have about six inches available behind the hanging clothes. Moving the bar to the back makes a deeper closet. Some closets are deep enough to do this and install even more shelves on the front walls, adjacent to the door. If you have room to walk in and turn forward, you could store a multitude of items here.

5) You may also be able to move your bar or top shelf up higher. Many closets have a top shelf, which is very useful. But, we often use about one to two feet of vertical space on this shelf, leaving another foot or two above our storage items before we're near the ceiling. Moving the shelf up higher can leave you room for another, more shallow shelf just below it for storing smaller items. You can place linens or large shallow containers for storage on this extra shelf. Or, move everything up a foot and make room on the floor for deeper storage containers, drawers or shoe organizers.

When you find easy ways to make space, you will be surprised how organized a small closet can be. When you are done, hang your clothes on matching hangers. Beautiful wooden cedar hangers or space saving metal hangers can give your closet even more of a professionally organized feel.