Organizing Project: Bedroom Closet

This week's organization project was to tackle my closet. First, let's describe my closet. I guess it's technically a walk-in, although you have to be pretty skinny to fit in there. It is a pretty small space, with my husband's clothes on one side and mine on the other. We each have hanging clothes, and we have a couple shelves on either side as well. Unfortunately, the shelves are pretty old and shallow, so it's tough to stack too much on them, particularly for my husband. We each have a hanging shoe rack, but we also have shoes on shelves or in boxes on the floor.

So....all that said... This project took closer to 30 minutes, but the results were huge! Here's what I did:

1. Took all the clothes off the shelves, folded them, and put them back, minus a few items that got put into our donations bag or winter items that were added to our winter storage boxes. (Hooray for Summer!)

2. Removed all the old dry-cleaning hangers and empty dry-cleaning bags. (So that's where those pants are?!? I found several pieces of my clothing on K's side, not yet separated from the dry-cleaners.)

3. Organized the hanging clothes by category - pants, shirts, skirts, suits and dresses. (I've seen people do it all sorts of ways - by color, etc. But this works for me.)

4. Arranged the shoes. I put the ones I wear the most in the hanging rack, since that's the most easily accessible, and then I organized the rest on a set of shelves on the floor. I added two pairs of shoes to the donations bag. Perfectly good shoes, but I never wear them, so they had to go. (One very smart tip I read about reducing clutter in your home: "Be Ruthless".) I also got rid of several empty shoe boxes and cleaned the floor before putting the shoes back.

*Again, this isn't a picture of my closet - not sure a picture would be able to adequately capture the improvement in my own. You'll just have to trust me.