The Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Master Bedroom Closet
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Your stuff needs a place
Over time it’s easy for our closets to get filled with extraneous items…sometimes items belong elsewhere in our home; sometimes we hold onto items well passed their usefulness. Starting with a detailed organizing and decluttering plan is the most efficient way to get your closets in good working order, so you can find everything you need at a moments notice.
Follow along for the ultimate guide to organizing your master bedroom closet (or any closet in your home!).
Gather supplies. Find a few empty bins or bags and label them keep, toss, and donate.
Empty the closet. Seriously. Pull out every shoe, dress, sweater, jacket and all the other items in your closet and put them on your bed or other surface. As you are doing this, gather the items by category. Immediately put any items for trash or donation in their appropriate bins. While sorting, be sure to gather items that you might have stored elsewhere in your home but belong in that particular closet and return any items that don’t belong in the closet to their appropriate place within your home.
Declutter items by category. Working by category, try on any items that you are unsure about and make an immediate decision to keep, toss or donate. When trying on your clothes, ask yourself these questions: Does it fit? Do I like it? Have I worn it during the past year? Is it in good condition?
Return items to your closet. As you go through each category, return the items you want to keep to your closet (be sure to do a quick vacuum of the floor and wipe down of any shelving) making sure to keep like items together. Keep the items you wear most frequently front and center in your closet. Items like formal wear can be relegated to the far sides of your clothing racks. We recommend putting like items together: dresses with dresses, long sleeve shirts with other long sleeve shirts, shorts with shorts. You get the point! You can also further organize the items by color and by season. This will make it easy to find the exact item you are looking for.
Asses your closet storage solutions. Might you need extra hangers? Maybe a tray to organize small accessories? Or possibly a bin or two to hold out-of-season clothing? Take some measurements and order any necessary items. Just be sure to save this step until after you have decluttered your clothing!
Make a plan. Be sure to come up with a plan to keep your closet organized going forward. One of my favorite tips is when you take an item off a hanger, put the empty hanger back in the exact spot from where it was hanging. That empty hanger will be a quick reminder as to where the item needs to be returned to.
A few final quick tips:
Use matching hangers. Using uniform hangers in your closet will give your closet a cohesive feel. And if space is tight, try using slim hangers. They’ll take up less space and give your clothing breathing room.
Don’t organize what you don’t want to keep. Do not be tempted to skip the most important step: declutter your closet of items you do not want.
Put rarely used items on a high shelf. Don’t let infrequently used items take up prime real estate in your closet.
Think vertically. Use covered bins (with labels!) on top of shelves for out-of-season clothes.
If you have adjustable shelving, take advantage of it! Move shelves up to stand up tall boots. Move them down for folded clothing so piles don’t get unwieldly and topple over.
Embrace uniformity in your storage components. Using bins that match each other and standard shoe boxes will offer a uniformity to your closet which will help to eliminate visual clutter making the closet feel neater.
Keep a slim stepladder in your closet. Make accessing items on the upper shelves quick and easy by keeping a slim stepladder easily accessible in your closet.
Keep a bin or bag in your closet for donations. Make sure everyone in the home knows where this bin lives so they can easily add to it.
You can use these same techniques for a linen closet, children’s bedroom closet or any other closet space in your home that needs to be decluttered and organized. Working systematically (by item type in a clothing closet or by shelf in a hallway or linen closet), is all you need to do to get organized. Just commit to a certain period of time, put a reminder in your calendar and get the project started. Once you complete the project, you’ll really enjoy having a decluttered and organize closet, being able to find what you want, when you need it, without having to search your entire home. In the end, by doing the work now, you’ll save time later. You’ll definitely find that it’s worth the time and effort!
More Organizing Ideas
Need even more ideas on how to organize your home? Living. Simplified. is ready to help. Take a look at these blog posts or send us an email at lauren@livingsimplified.net and we can work together to reach your organizing and decluttering goals:
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