How to organize a walk-in-closet

Not long ago, a friend asked me to help her out with organizing her walk-in-closet. I have to say, that having a walk-in-closet (or a room set-up like that) is a privilege. Knowing how to make the most of this space is something else and something I love doing! My friend’s closet is spacious, it has two double wardrobes where you can hang many clothes, and she also has dozens of pairs of heels. Having studied the space and the objects to be organized, I got working.

This exercise can be a bit overwhelming and to avoid that feeling I follow three steps: evaluate-categorize-organize.

1. Evaluate

With so many clothes and accessories, the first thing I usually do is evaluate what is really necessary, in other words, purge the unwanted things, to reduce the volume.

2. Categorize

Right after that, we did a clothes seasonal change, storing the summer clothes (since we were already in autumn). When we had the necessary in front of us, we created little piles of clothes by type of garment (t-shirts, sweaters, belts, scarves…)

3. Organize

After doing all of that, it’s simply a question of tidying the wardrobes. I like to have identical hangers, as well as categorizing the clothes by type and colour. I think that in this way you can find what you need quicker and we do not commit the crime of saying the classic phrase of “I have nothing to wear”. Below you can see the before and after of the wardrobes.

First wardrobe:

Second wardrobe:

I asked my friend to go to Ikea beforehand and buy a set of shelves similar to the Billy Bookcase (with the most suitable size for her needs) to place her shoes. After finishing with the wardrobes, we were able to focus on setting up the shelves and on placing the shoes that were scattered on the floor. The best part of the shelves is that you can adapt them to suit you best, for shoes this is ideal.

Shoes before:

Shoes after:

Shoes detail:

At the end of it all, I organized the bags. The simplest way to do this is to tidy them in order of size so they fit better and don’t fall off their place. By doing so, it also looks esthetically better.

The best thing about this project is that I only took 2.5hr to do everything (including setting up the shelves). The unwanted clothes were given to a Caritas franchise. Finally and before leaving, I placed a mothproof sachet to protect the clothes.