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My Top Tips for an Organized (and cute) Closet

Hey look I finally finished something this year! And not just something – oh no – this post is a two-for-one. When I laid out my plans for what I wanted to tackle this year I was being more than a little ambitious given my shrunken bandwidth, but the truth is that slow and steady still gets you across that finish line eventually so I’m going to stop the self-deprecating now because this post is all about celebrating the simple joy of an organized closet….specifically my guest room and linen closets.

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What’s funny is that this whole year I’ve been musing on how my life (and subsequentially my wish list) is starting to expand well outside of my house which is what led to the final push I needed to get these closets organized. Besides them just being a chaotic mess — I really wanted to carve out a place in our home for our luggage and our growing collection of travel accessories and our unusually large linen closet that lives in the middle of the loft was the obvious choice. And when I started to really think about how to use that space the most efficiently I realized that moving some things into the guest room closet (which is primarily used to house my boys nicer clothes) just made the most sense…hence the two-for-one DIY special.

There’s not all that much to say about these specific spaces so instead of rambling on about what’s in them I thought what would be most helpful is to share the tips and details that I use over and over again when I design closets and why they’re important not just stylistically but functionally and can be helpful whether you decide to completely customize your own design, install ready-made systems, or hire it out.

Purge First

The first step to any renovation project – especially one that centers around organization – is to clean and purge first. I tend to let spaces get really bad when I know that a makeover is on the horizon and closets are no exception (see the before of my closet for a real gem). Taking inventory of what you have – and more importantly what you need to fit back into a space – is super important so put aside time to completely empty the space, put everything in a location where you can easily sort it, and be super honest with yourself about what you need to let go of. Once that’s done — you can plan out what type of storage containers you want, how many shelves you need and the dimensions, and how accessible you want things to be.

My Initial Sketch for the Guest Room Closet

Custom Made Shelving

Whether you build your own or opt for a ready made option one thing to consider is whether you want to paint your shelving or not. For me it’s usually a choice of how much use are my shelves going to get — for example the shelves in my linen closet will get quite a far amount of use as I pull linens and travel accessories out throughout the year so I opted to keep them natural with a light stain and seal…while my guest closet shelves see a lot less use as they hold the boys warm weather clothes so I felt more comfortable painting them without a big fear of chipping or scratching.

Painted Ceilings

Small spaces just lend themselves so well to some color on the ceiling. My preferred options are either a monochromatic option that matches the walls, or a darker shade that gives the added bonus of making the room walls feel higher.

Wallpaper

I think there’s this misconception that wallpapered walls are more fragile than painted ones – but the opposite is actually true especially if you choose good quality, heavy paper. So to me it just makes sense to use it in closest, even if just against the back wall, to protect your walls from knicks and gauges from storage boxes and hangers. Even better – use paper leftover from another project or keep an eye out for discount rolls since you only need a small amount.

Hooks on the back of Doors

Behind the door storage is too precious to waste especially in a closet — but I am personally not a fan of over the door storage solutions because you can see the hardware on the poking out from the top. Instead I rely on simple hooks (installed using anchors specifically designed for hollow core doors). They’re super versatile and can be used for all types of things like hanging your ironing board or storing an extra stepstool.

Canvas Boxes

One splurge I am happy I invested in was these really simple and pretty canvas storage boxes. I’ve seen all kinds of special solutions for storing bed and bath linens but I know myself and that I would eventually find them as more of a hassle than a help so I went for the easiest option with a few DIY modifications. These larger boxes have a small panel on the side so you can see what is inside but for the smaller boxes I just used print-at-home name tags pinned to the outside. In the guest room, I also picked up these thin canvas storage containers from IKEA and then added some handles using some leather cord and my new nifty rivet tool.

Ever since other commitments have become a priority my DIY projects have slowed to almost a complete halt – so it felt really nice to when I finally closed the door (pun intended) on something a little bigger than my small weekly tasks. It actually has sparked a little bit of a fire that I’m trying to direct towards some more manageable projects so I’ll hopefully ride that wave to at least one more checkmark on my Wish List before the year’s over.