Organizing My Closet as a Professional Organizer

As blustery fall changed into freezing winter, I knew it was time to go through my closet once again. Even as a professional organizer, it helps to go through the things I own occasionally to purge whatever is no longer serving me.

I probably do this once a year but trust me, I would love to do it more often.

Closets are one of my favorite things to organize and it’s often where I start with all of my clients. This isn’t because I strictly adhere to the KonMari method, or even necessarily because I think it’s the best place to start.

It is really because most closets can be overhauled in one session (unless you have a two-story closet like the one The Home Edit recently posted about). This includes going through hanging clothes, as well as drawers, baskets, and even shoes and coats.

Product implementation comes later, once we have gone through and decided what can stay and what should go.

Now, where I differ from many organizers is in how they organize hanging clothes. Pretty much all of the organizers I know organize the clothes by category (all dresses, shirts, pants, etc. together) and then by color within the category.

I prefer to do the opposite.

I like to keep my clothes organized by color - all the black together, grey together, red together, etc… And then to organize by category within each color. I hang the clothes in this order: skirts, dresses, short-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve shirts, sweaters, and blazers/coats.

Now any given color section may only have 3 or 4 categories in it, but some of my larger ones (like black and blue) have something from every category.

When organizing with clients, I let them choose whatever method they would prefer - but most decide to go along with what I suggest.

I choose to organize this way because I think that this method looks better, since all like colors are together, and I’m able to easily locate exactly what I am looking for.

Plus if I hung all my blazers together that would be an extremely small section - I only have two. Whereas my dresses would take up half my closet (I mean they do anyway, but right now they are spread out).

Whichever way you prefer is what you should do. But if your closet isn’t organized in some kind of ROYGBIV order - I highly, highly recommend it.

Since my closet is already organized by color, I decided to go through it in a way that I hadn’t tried it before. Instead of pulling out all of my clothes, I purged by color, starting with black. As you can see above, there is no black in my closet.

Then I went through it systematically, color by color - black, grey, brown, red, green, blue, purple, pink, and tan/white. You may have some, all, or none of these colors in your closet. But it doesn’t matter. Just take each out, one and a time, and get organizing.

I actually really enjoyed going through my closet this way - because instead of seeing that “wow I have a lot of dresses” like I would have if I had gone through all my dresses at the same time, rather I realized that each black dress I have serves a different purpose. One or two I can wear to work, one or two are for more formal occasions, and I have one that I can dress up or down - and there were a couple I could part with because they were made redundant by the ones I liked more!

I also use this time to straighten up clothes like this that are crooked or not hanging properly.

While I do have the habit of putting my clothes away every night, that doesn’t mean I’m hanging them up straight I guess!

When I reached the purple category I realized I don’t have a lot of purple in my closet, and most of the purple pieces I do have I don’t wear very often! For the last several months, every time I brushed past these pieces in my closet, I knew that I was probably ready to part with them.

But one weekend, when I was meeting a friend for coffee, I realized that she would love some of the purple pieces in my closet that I no longer wore. I knew that she would put them to much greater use than I was! So I made up my mind and with this purge, I passed them on.

I also use the time I spend going through my closet to check for tears, loose seams, or stains.

Trust me, that’s the reason I’m looking at this dress so intently!

If you find an item that is damaged and really can’t be repaired, it can be taken to places like Goodwill or H&M for textile recycling. This is a much better option than just tossing it in the trash.

When you take the time to go through your closet, you will probably find pieces you had forgotten about but that you love.

I got this pink floral shirt on a trip to England and it brings back so many memories. Now that my closet has gone back to being full of things that I love and that fit my current stage of life, I notice and wear it more often. And even when I don’t wear it, just being able to see it better sparks joy!

One of the ways I make sure that my closet is never fully out of control is that I never buy or accept hangers. When stores offer to send them home, I always say no.

And I never have to buy them because I have decided that the number of hangers that I own will more than accommodate the number of clothes that I want in my life.

For some people that might be 5 hangers, for me, it’s much higher. But it is still an intentional choice.

This often leads to the “one in, one out” rule. If I want to buy something that needs a space to hang, I will have to pass along something else to free up a hanger for it. This helps to keep things I don’t really love moving out of my wardrobe, while keeping the barrier to entry quite high.

Another reason I don’t buy or accept hangers is that the easiest way to make a closet look pulled together is to have all matching hangers. When you have a hodgepodge of department store plastic hangers, wooden hangers, and velvet hangers, it is almost impossible to get a polished look.

For most of my clients, and for myself, I use hangers like these from Amazon. These hangers are really nice because they take up much less room in your closet and tend to keep the clothes from falling to the floor.

As a professional organizer, I often get asked my opinion on capsule wardrobes.

I understand the appeal, the layouts and plans on Pinterest are beautiful and stunning. Plus, it tends to mean you can go out and buy more versatile pieces to make up that capsule wardrobe - leaving the wardrobe you have at home even bigger than when you started.

When we have clients who want to create a capsule wardrobe, I love to help them curate one. But when we do, I encourage them to find the (majority) of the pieces in the clothes that they already own.

This way, what they end up with, is a capsule wardrobe full of pieces that they already love, that they know fit, and that actually reflect their style.

Instead of having a capsule wardrobe, I tend to stick to different principles to keep what I own within a good range. For example, only buying clothes that are certain colors and making myself think of at least 3 possible outfits combinations for a new piece before purchasing it.

If you have a capsule wardrobe or want to create one - that is so great! I would love to help you with that process. Just make sure it is the right step for you, and keep some of the pitfalls above in mind.

Finally, I tackled my drawers. Since I don’t have quite the range of colors and items there that I do in my closet, I organized the usual way - by type.

I went through my short-sleeved shirts, long-sleeved shirts, pants, leggings, pajamas, scarfs, hats, coats, and undergarments.

Once I had gone through everything, I refolded the items that were staying to give them a fresh look and put them back by in ROYGBIV order.

Finally, at the end of a long day (or hour) of organizing, there’s nothing like relaxing with a cup of tea in one of my favorite spots in your house… for me, that’s next to my ROYGBIV bookcase of course!

If you want some ideas on how to organize your closet, you can visit my website, Masterpeace Organizing, and get personalized tips for your space.

I may have to wait several more months before I can do another closet purge, but until then, I'll reap the benefits of this one - an organized closet full of clothes that I love - two things that spark joy.

Until next time,

Carly

Photos by Mason Joel Photography