CTR Organizing Team

Closet organization can be a challenge. The nature of the challenge can be two fold. The task might be challenging because over the years you have accumulated too much stuff. Conversely, the task might be challenging because, despite your minimalist leanings, your current home simply doesn’t have enough closet space.

I’ve managed many closet organization projects over my career, and you may think that it would be more challenging to deal with situations where there is a physical lack of storage space. You might be surprised to learn that it isn’t the physical constraints that are hard to solve, but in fact it is much harder to solve a closet organization problem where the closet owner can not visualize getting rid of any of their belongings.

Clutter is often the root of the biggest organization problems that I run into. If there is no clear place for the things that you want and need in your home, then they will just float around causing your home to look disorganized, and very quickly more clutter is added, and soon your house is disorganized past the point of comfort. An emergency clean-up will end up with a lot of unorganized stuff being shoved into a closet, but that just complicates the problem. The root of the problem needs to be dealt with – get rid of the clutter, and find a place for everything in your home. If you bring something new into your home it needs its own space, and if none exists, then something else should go to make room for the new item.

That said, this first step in closet organization is to sort through the items that need to be organized. I always try to sort the items into a. must keep, b. might keep, and c. can be donated or trashed. Try to keep and equal amount of things in each category. The reality is that you will likely only get the client to part with 20-25% of the contents of any given closet but I always aim for a target of a 40-50% reduction.

If you find it difficult to tackle your whole house or even a large closet all at once, you might break the job down into smaller chunks, and spread the job out over a number of days or weeks. If you work on one area, and sort everything from this area into those three categories of things, then over the next week keep coming back and re-examining your piles. You may find that it is easy to move ‘maybe’ items to the ‘give away’ pile after you’ve had a chance to realize how much you really need or don’t need it.

Organizing your closets is definitely a big challenge. Letting old things go is always a hard thing, but you need to accept that you only have so much room in your life (and your closets) for your belongings. Take the purging process seriously, and keep coming back to your closets over time. By constantly questioning the value of your clutter versus the value of simplicity, you will eventually reach a state where you don’t feel so overwhelmed, and you will be much better able to keep your closets (and your life) organized.

College is usually most people’s first time away from home. Therefore it’s almost like starting from scratch, setting up a new home. No doubt you’re excited and a little apprehensive as well. The fact that you’re usually on a shoe string budget and have to put up with strange companions doesn’t help either. Moving day just got so much better.

The first thing to when you move in to your dorm room is to settle in and hang out a little with your dorm mates. You also need to take a good look at the room itself – how large it is, what you can fit in it, what you might have to sacrifice, how much space you can have to yourself, how much you might have to share, etc, will all need to be taken into account. Talking things out with your dorm mate(s) is important since you will be co-habiting and any changes you make is going to affect them as well and vice versa. So in the first few days it makes good sense to set some ground rules as to how much personal stuff each one of you can stock, and how space sharing is going to work.

Once you’ve figured out what you can store and what you can’t, you need things to store it in. Your trunks can work well to store your clothes for a decent amount of time. IF your dorm has a closet, you can work on sharing it – decide how many shelves to each person. If your trunk is too large, storing them underneath the bed is the best option. In case you find this a messy job try folding your clothes in neat piles in a milk or plastic crate, covering it with newspaper and then pushing it underneath the bed.

You might have to get new bedding – mattresses for example. Before buying new ones check with the college and see if they supply any at a discount. If you have to buy it yourself – don’t spend too much. A twin feather bed would be quite enough. Ensure it is cheap, but good quality as a good night’s sleep is important. If you have some cash to spare you could also invest in a good futon mattress. Dorm beds are usually large and a futon mattress can be very comfortable.

You might want just one desk to share, or if you’re lucky you may get two. If you have separate ones, the best way to keep your property yours is to label everything (a label maker is an essential buy). You can also get real cheap CD racks, book racks and containers for all your stationary, online. Wal-Mart may be easy, but scouting around online will get you some discount. A laptop will be a necessary expense – however the internet connection may not so check with your college for Wi-Fi access. If they don’t provide it, you may want to get an internet connection on a sharing basis with your room mate. A desk lamp is another basic necessity. Again, check with your college if they provide one or buy one off a garage sale.

In my business, I am always trying to make the most efficient use of closet space. I have made customized closet storage systems for large closets and small closets. I have been asked to create closet organization systems on a minimal budget and I have been asked to design luxurious closets with no expense spared. My work has run the gamut from huge walk in closets to very small reach in closets.

Given my extensive experience in designing closet organization systems I felt pretty confident that I could handle most closet issues. I have begun to advertise on our local cable channel and business is booming. I have a web site that gets a fair amount of traffic and I tend to get a lot of referral business or word of mouth business.

As is always the case, just when you feel at your most confident, you run into a design problem that makes you stumble and perhaps doubt your abilities. I, myself, ran into a huge closet design issue that I felt unprepared to handle. I had this experience last weekend in a most unexpected place. Although thoroughly challenged I think I rose to the occasion.

This was a closet design request that I just couldn’t turn down. A few weeks ago my sister asked if I was available to watch my nephew for the weekend, while she and my brother-in-law went to a conference a few hours out of town. Unbeknown to me, my sister had already cut a deal with my nephew. He was a less than happy to be left at home alone for the weekend, so the only way my sister could convince him was to tell him that his closet designing aunt would come over for the weekend, and she would help him do a closet makeover any way he wanted. When I was told that this was the babysitting past-time, actually I thought it was a great way to keep us both occupied.

When I arrived at the house with my organizer catalogs and color swatches in hand, I was greeted by my sister and nephew. My sister gave me the run down on where everything was, said a quick goodbye to my nephew saying “have fun with your closet redesign dear”, and they were gone. So now to the serious design work. I was surprised to see how prepared my nephew was, with his own pile of closet design inspiration clippings. But upon closer inspection, it became apparent that my nephew was not interested in any type of storage solutions what so ever. The clippings he handed me were assorted castle and dungeon pictures! A cell-phone call later and it was confirmed – we were redesigning a closet play room, of the medieval vintage.

Well, after I got over the initial surprise, and panic that I wasn’t prepared for this sort of closet make-over, I decided that this after all was just a closet design with a different look. In the end I created a great castle within a closet, and I incorporated some great storage ideas to boot. Remember that whatever closet design challenge is thrown your way, whether it is a tiny closet with no shelves, or you have a large closet and a small budget, just use some imagination in your design and you may be surprised with the results.