Recently I worked with Carla* who has an organized condo. The mess that was annoying her was in her three closets. Lot of piles of mismatched items rested on shelves and floors of closets. Tackling one closet at a time and determining what already in them works for the client and what doesn’t work, we took action. We took everything out (mind you, there were two of us, professional organizers working on this) of the closets. I was tackling the wardrobe closet and my colleague was tackling another closet that serves a different storage need.
All the hanging clothes and sweaters on shelves came onto the bed. First, I focused on Carla’s hanging clothes, putting items back according to categories: dresses, dress jackets, cardigans, various tops and pants. I learned which dresses she wears for work and which are fun/non-work dresses. Carla travels a lot for work and needs easy access to her work clothes.
Because Carla was using wood hangers, which were thick, even though the closet was a generous size closet, it was tight. By switching to thin hangers made it easy for her to take out what she wanted and put things away after trip/laundry. Though Carla had purged her clothes before we came in, it’s still good to look through to make sure everything in closet is something she wanted to wear. When I was sorting through the sweaters from the shelving, I realized some of the cardigans should go on hangers because it’s much easier for her to access them and for her to see how many she has. She didn’t realize how many she had.
The second closet serves Carla’s shoes, sportswear clothes and memorabilia and drop zone items. Things get tossed in, when she doesn’t know where things should go. Lots of random stuff on the shelves and floor. That also got pulled out and put together by categories. That helped Carla looks at to determine what to keep or let go. Most of those items were to let go. We noticed extra light bulbs in the hallway closet. We first checked with Carla to see if they’re all still relevant to the home’s needs. Anything she wouldn’t use was let go. Extra items from a renovation of the bathroom she didn’t need, but isn’t ready to let go, were moved to storage.
Finally in Carla’s front hall closet, same method, taking everything out to organize by categories. Light to heavy coats, cleaning supplies, vacuum, bags of bags, tool boxes and light bulbs. I suggested that the client get hooks in the closet to get brooms, Swiffer and mop off the floor. There were extra backpacks she didn’t want or travel bags which went into another closet. Way more breathing room in all of the closets.
Carla loves the result so much that we are returning to tackle other areas of her home.
*Note: These blog stories feature real clients and their organizing solutions. To maintain client privacy, all names have been changed.
©SoloffSpaceSolutions, Chicagoland professional organizer
Why are there cleaning supplies in a front hall closet? Isn’t there storage elsewhere?
It’s where the client wants to store her cleaning supplies. Plus it’s easy access for anyone doing the cleaning.