Get Your Party On! (With an Organized Closet)

The holiday season offers an array of opportunities to get gussied up, but we need to be ready. No, frantic last-minute foraging in your closet for something to wear. Below are some Closet Organization 101 basic guidelines, which are especially useful during this busy time of year.

Current Only

Unless you have unlimited storage space, which would be lovely, but most of us are not that fortunate, you will need to maximize your closet capacity. Given that we have a finite amount of space to work with, hopefully you have moved the out of season garments elsewhere. It’s winter, let’s not have your favorite sun dress or board shorts taking up valuable space. That goes for items that do not fit properly, need repairs or laundering, as well.

Categories Are Useful

Another helpful tip is to arrange clothing by general category. For example, have all your dressy garments together in one section. Keep workout wear in one area and the same for casual weekend garb. Professional work outfits should be grouped in one place. If you have shelves available, you can fold non-wrinkling pieces like sweaters there to make more room. Then arrange tops all together (best by sleeve length) and likewise with bottoms, separating pants and skirts for the ladies.

Tiered hangers can save precious closet space by accommodating multiple pairs of pants. They work for scarves too. Speaking of hangers, you want uniformity. Sturdy hangers with griper patches at the shoulders are great, but again if space is at a premium, consider purchasing the thinner felt covered hangers which require less space. You can even take the category approach a step further by sectioning like garments by color. With this exercise, you might find that you are the proud owner of 14 white tops or 20 pair of blue jeans.

Accessories Galore

Category guidelines from above can be useful in this arena, too. You can organize shoes on various tiered storage devices: door hangers, metal racks, etc. Boots should be grouped together and likewise with athletic shoes. Hats can be stacked to save space. Handbags can be hung on pegs or laid flat and layered or grouped in marked bins from your favorite container store. Now that you have your closet beautifully organized, the best is yet to come…

Have Outfits at the Ready

This is the most time-saving technique ever. Determine how dressy your calendar of holiday activities is going to be and make a list. Let’s say you find invitations to two dressy parties, oops, New Year’s Eve too, so make that three. You also have an office party requiring biz casual, and four casual events.

Use suit hangers to put together complete outfits with accessories, jewelry, ties, special under garments, and even shoes. Ladies, the perfect jewels to set off your ensembles can be placed inside a Ziplock baggy with holes cut in the tops to slide over the hanger. Separate each outfit with satin lingerie hangers to avoid wrinkling.

Group all your gorgeous holiday outfits together in a prominent section of your gloriously organized closet, where they are at the ready. This may prove to be so useful that you want to try it with your work and play outfits, as well.  Save time and consternation, look great and have fun!

If this sounds too daunting to tackle by yourself, the Organization Queens of SolutionsForYou are a mere phone call or email away. 

Anne Blumer and her talented team can be reached at 503-706-3502 or anne [at] solutionsforyou [dot] com