Organising Your Wardrobe: The Ultimate Guide
There’s nothing more stressful than a bursting wardrobe with an avalanche of clothes in the bottom, shoes falling out and creases forming in your shirts. This ultimate guide to organising your wardrobe will help you to cleanse your closet and make selecting each day’s outfit a pleasure!
When your wardrobe is organised, finding your favourite clothes is much easier and less stressful, House of Oak have put together the ultimate guide to decluttering your space.
There are two elements to every closet: the wardrobe itself and the contents. We’ll start by breaking these down - to ensure you’ve got the right canvas to work from - then tackle the step-by-step process of organising your wardrobe.
Skip to: Step By Step Organising
The Wardrobe
When it comes to organising your wardrobe, the first thing to assess is the space you’ve got.
Size
The space you have in your bedroom, and the amount of clothing you have, is going to impact the size of your wardrobe. If you’re really struggling to organise your closet, it could be that the space is too small! The bigger your wardrobe, the easier it will be to organise.
If you’re looking to purchase a new wardrobe, then consider what size firstly will fit into your room, but secondly will allow you to effectively store all your clothing.
When it comes to wardrobes, there are three standard sizes - although some built-in wardrobes are much bigger. If you are looking for a new solid oak wardrobe, view our collection at House of Oak.
Single
A single wardrobe is the smallest size. With one single door, it’s ideal for one person with a smaller collection of clothes and shirts that need hanging. If you have less space in your room, then a single wardrobe could be the perfect solution. However, they take more organisation than a larger wardrobe and might mean you have to be stricter about the number of clothes you own - or combine clothing storage with a chest of drawers.
Double
A double wardrobe is the most popular size. It’s big enough to store a large number of clothes and can be shared between two people, as long as you don’t both have a lot of items! It’s the perfect wardrobe for medium sizes spaces.
Triple
A triple wardrobe is the biggest size of free-standing wardrobe that’s commonly available. It has three doors and loads of room to hang clothing and store other items. If you have space for it in your bedroom, it’s the ideal wardrobe for couples or those that have a lot of clothes! When looking to organise your wardrobe, having a space this big is ideal.
Additional Storage Features
Size isn’t the only consideration when looking at your wardrobe; you should also assess what additional storage features it comes with.
Drawers
It’s common for double and triple wardrobe to have a drawer underneath the main hanging space. This can be extremely helpful for storing clothing that doesn’t need to be hung, or other general items in your bedroom. This could include socks, blankets, shoes or jumpers, to name a few.
Consider whether you would find it most helpful to have one single drawer or several smaller drawers. Often several drawers help you to be more organised as these can be used for different purposes.
Choosing a wardrobe with drawers can be extremely helpful when it comes to organising your closet, but if you have a chest of drawers in your room, you might not need this feature.
Shelving
Many wardrobes also have built-in shelves. This could come as a single large shelf across the top of the wardrobe, or several shelves down one side.
Shelves can be used to organise and store items that don’t need to be hung, such as shoes or blankets.
Wardrobe vs Chest of Drawers
A wardrobe isn’t the only way to store clothing; chests of drawers are an alternative. They allow you to store more items in a smaller space as clothing is folded and stacked. If you have a lot of clothes but not much space, then a chest of drawers could work well.
However, some clothing needs to hang up in order to stay looking great, especially ironed shirts, t-shirts or dresses. Clothing in a chest of drawers is likely to get more creased.
Consider combining your clothing storage between a wardrobe and chest of drawers. You can hang items that need doing so in your wardrobe, but fold other items such as jeans, pyjamas and underwear.
Having both a closet and chest of drawers can really help with organising your wardrobe. It creates more space and therefore makes it easy to store different things in an effective system.
Why not get a matching wardrobe and chest of drawers? That way your room will look fantastic and you’ll have the ideal clothing storage solution!
Your Clothes
The wardrobe itself is one of two factors that you need to consider when looking to organise your closet. The clothing you’re trying to fit inside is a vital consideration!
Old and Unworn
If you have a lot of clothes that you no longer wear, they’ll be filling up your wardrobe and making it messy unnecessarily. Read our tips on sorting your clothes to reduce the amount of clothing you’re trying to fit into your wardrobe. This will make organising it much easier!
Out of Season
You might have a lot of clothes that you wear just in the summer or just in the winter. When it’s the other season, they’ll be taking up space in your wardrobe. Consider storing out-of-season clothes in a separate space to the clothes that you’re cycling through more regularly, such as in a chest of drawers. This will make it much easier to organise your wardrobe and find the items you actually want to wear.
Shirts vs Jumpers
Not all items need to hang in a wardrobe. Clothing such as jumpers, jeans and thicker winter wear might not crease very easily at all. By folding these and storing them in a chest of drawers, you’ll free up space in your wardrobe and make it a lot easier to organise.
Steps To Organise Your Wardrobe
Follow our step by step guide to organising your wardrobe - you’ll have a neat and tidy space in no time!
1. Get Rid of Unused Clothes
The most common cause of a disorganised wardrobe is too many clothes. If your wardrobe is full to bursting, it’s a lot harder to find the items you actually want to wear. Clothes are more like to fall off hangers and become lost in a wasteland of fabric at the bottom of the closet!
Whether you’re a shopaholic, a sentimental hoarder or simply haven’t sorted through your clothing for a while, it’s always worth having a sit-down and separating out the clothes you don’t wear anymore.
This can be hard, but if you want an organised wardrobe, you’ll have to be strict with yourself. Consider when you last wore all your clothing. If it’s an old favourite, there’s no need to get rid of it, but if it’s been months since you even remembered you had it, it might be time to take it to a charity shop.
Ask yourself:
- When did I last wear it?
- Does it still fit?
- Do I like how it looks on me?
- Do I know someone who would like it more?
- Is it too old and damaged to be worth keeping?
There are a few different ways to get rid of old clothing and clear some space in your wardrobe:
Charity Shops
Taking old items to a local charity shop is a fantastic way to clear some space in your home while also supporting important causes. Donating your old clothes can help to raise money for different charities.
Sell It
If an item is particularly new or of high quality, you could choose to sell it. There are loads of different online platforms for this and could mean you make some extra money from clothes that you no longer want.
Throw it Away
For items that are damaged or stained, your best option is likely to throw them away. If you’re handy with a needle and thread, however, you might be able to mend the items or use the fabric for another purpose.
Extra Tips for Sorting Through Clothing
If you’re really struggling to get rid of items, you could try keeping them for a few weeks in a drawer or separate space in your wardrobe. If you don’t look for them within that time, then they can go to the charity shop.
You could use your clothes hangers to implement this system. Turn all the hangers the same way around. When you wear an item, turn the hanger the other way. After a few weeks, see which items are still facing the original direction and send them off to a new home.
2. Organise Into Type
Once you’ve sorted what items you’re going to keep, you’ll need to empty your wardrobe completely and sort your clothing into different types.
Put shirts, trousers, dresses, jumpers and other clothes into different piles. It’s a good idea to separate out the clothes that need hanging from those that can be folded.
This process of sorting will help you to build your wardrobe back up into a more organised system where you know where each item of clothing is stored.
Be sure to empty your wardrobe entirely so nothing is forgotten - this includes shoes, underwear, swimming costumes and coats!
3. Clean
It’s not often you’ll have a completely empty wardrobe so take this opportunity to clean it. Wipe down the shelves and empty any dust and dirt from the drawers. You could try using nozzle extension on your vacuum cleaner and running it around the bottom; this will catch any dirt.
4. Use Additional Storage & Organisers
When your wardrobe is empty, it’s the perfect time to add in new organisers and storage items. These will help you to repopulate your wardrobe in a more organised fashion!
Boxes
Boxes are a fantastic way to organise your wardrobe. They can be stacked up to make the most of vertical space and provide the perfect storage solution for items that don’t need to hang, like jumpers, or items you want to store away, like Halloween costumes or out-of-season clothing.
Hangers
Make sure you have enough clothes hangers for all the items that you want to hang up. Not having enough is one reason that clothes end up being piled up on the floor!
Consider what style of clothes hanger you like. Fabric ones provide more friction and therefore can be great for items that have a tendency to slip off their hangers.
Shoe Racks
Shoe racks provide a tidy way of organising all the shoes in your wardrobe. They come in all sorts of different forms such as ones that hang over the door or from the main wardrobe hanger. You can get shoe racks that sit at the bottom of your wardrobe or on shelves. Think about the space you have available and how you can make the most of it.
If you have a small wardrobe, you might want to consider storing shoes separately. This will leave more space for your clothing.
Baskets
Baskets are ideal for storing smaller items like belts or socks. They help to keep these in one place so they’re easy to find amongst your other clothing.
Top tip: Use storage items that you already own, like baskets and boxes. You could spend money on more expensive storage systems, but you often won’t need to!
5. Fill Your Wardrobe
Now you’ve got rid of excess clothing, organised them into type and have additional storage items in place, it’s time to fill your wardrobe back up.
Boxes
Start by placing your folded clothes into different boxes or drawers, keeping them separate according to type. Place the boxes into your wardobe, making the most of the floor of your wardrobe, as well as any shelves. Be sure to put boxes of items you use rarely at the bottom of any stacks.
You might find it helpful to label boxes, especially if they look the same, to help you remember which contains what.
Hangers
Hang up your shirts, tops and dresses. Be sure to keep the same types of items together so you know where to look for certain things when you’re in a rush!
Shoes
Place your shoes on a rack or in a shoebox. It’s important to keep them in a storage system of some kind rather than loose in your wardrobe to avoid the problems of pairs becoming separated!
Top tip: make sure none of your clothes and accessories are loose in your wardrobe. Having loose items often makes it harder to maintain an organised wardrobe and might be the downfall of your system!
Maintaining Organisation
Organising your wardrobe can take a bit of time, so you want to ensure you can keep it tidy in the long-run!
Daily Upkeep
Organising your wardrobe will come down to setting up daily habits. Even when you’re tired at the end of the day, be sure to hang clothes up properly and put shoes away on the shoe rack rather than just throwing them in.
This will help you to maintain an organised wardrobe.
Monthly Check
Once a month, check on the organisation of your wardrobe. If you’ve kept up with hanging items every day then this won’t take too much time. You could use this as an opportunity to check through your clothes and see if there’s anything you haven’t worn in a while and could give away.
Buying New Clothes
Everyone buys new clothes sometimes. To keep things getting out of control though, you could implement a ‘one in, one out’ rule: every time you buy a new item, you donate or sell an old one. This will help to prevent your wardrobe from getting too full again and becoming disorganised!
Be sure to throw away items when they become stained or damaged beyond repair. It can be easy to wash socks with holes in and put them back in your wardrobe, only to never wear them because you know they’re damaged!
Organising your wardrobe can be extremely satisfying! Follow our tips to get it looking fantastic and to keep it organised. If you’re looking for a new wardrobe, check out our beautiful solid oak wardrobe collection at House of Oak.