21 Ways to Makeover Your Closet for the New Year ...

If you’re serious about starting the New Year with a newly organized closet, the first step is to get drastic. Empty your entire closet. The reason for this is, it shows you exactly the space you have to work with (when was the last time you saw it empty?). Put all your items into like for like sections – so make piles of clothes, bags, shoes and accessories (and anything else you may be storing in there). You can now proceed with the rest of the ways to makeover your closet.

Next, you are going to get ruthless – you’re going to purge your wardrobe. Go through every item of clothing. Make a decision to keep or get rid of (as in trash, donate, give away or sell). Don’t let sentimentality get in the way. If you haven’t worn something for ages, it doesn’t fit, or it has a hole – don’t keep it.

One of the best space saving methods is to only keep your clothes for the current season in your closet. So, while you’re sorting in step 2 above, divide your wardrobe into seasons. There are plenty of space-saving options available, from boxes to crates to canvas bags and cases. I personally swear by those bags you can suck the air out of using a vacuum cleaner. You can pack piles of clothes in them and shrink them to a fraction of their original size and put them away until you need them again.

Once you’re left with the clothes you’re going to keep, to make dressing up a lot easier and faster, it’s a smart idea to place your clothing in the closet by category: work outfits, casual tops, evening dresses, jeans, dress pants, fitness clothing and so on.

If you are still at a loss as to how to transform your closet for the New Year, here’s another nice tip related to better organizing. Color-code your clothing, arranging all items from dark to light. It will take you a lot less to find a matching piece for your outfit. I actually arrange mine by type of item and also by color.

When it comes to closet organization, there’s one absolutely foolproof tip. Your most popular and regularly worn items should be the easiest to reach. Unless you’ve got space in the foot of the closet for a small stepladder, the higher spaces should be used for seasonal items, rarely worn items and other things that people store in closets, such as blankets and sports/fitness equipment.

Clear drawers are great for keeping your accessories organized. You can use one for underwear, another one for scarves, maybe one for belts and so on. This is one of the best ways to makeover your closet, as you won’t have to search through drawer after drawer to find that one item you are looking for. If you want to use colored boxes, that’s fine too, just make sure you label them on the outside.

If you want to enjoy your favorite clothes for a long time to come, keep in mind that different types of clothing need different hangers. For example, I keep my delicate blouses on satin-padded hangers, while my tailored jackets feel most comfortable on sturdy, wooden ones.

One of the most popular ways to reorganize your closet is to install durable metal hooks inside, where you can hang your bags. This solution will not only save you some space, but it will also prevent your bags from losing shape.

If you have the space, building a sloped plywood platform to keep your shoes on it will allow you to easily spot the right match for your clothes. Another option for shoes is clear boxes but these can take up a lot of room if you have a large shoe collection.

Install hanging canvas shelves and bins to make use of every spare inch in your wardrobe. This is one of the smartest ways to makeover your closet if you never seem to have enough room for all your stuff.

If you have a walk-in wardrobe, this is the simplest way to carry out a closet makeover ever! Hang a mirror in there and… you just got yourself your own dressing station. If not, you can still screw a full length mirror to the inside door if you are lacking space for one elsewhere in your room.

One of the best ways to makeover your closet if you have large shelves is to install shelf dividers. This will prevent your sweater stacks from leaning over and basically keep everything in its place. It also helps you see what you’ve got and which stack you need to reach to for that pink cashmere sweater.

If you don’t want to put a mirror in the inner door you could instead mount racks on the closet doors to get the most out of that unused and often ignored space. Use them for belts and scarves.

If you have dead unused space (as if!), place an upright plastic bin in a corner of the closet, and you can store your umbrellas, bags, sneakers etc – or anything else you don’t want hanging around elsewhere.

Mounting a pegboard inside your closet door will create a convenient and affordable miniature dressing or makeup station. This is one of the most useful ways to makeover your closet. You can hang a small mirror for "finishing touches” and use it to store your jewelry, sunglasses, belts, scarves – whatever!

Another way to make use of that valuable door space is with an over the door rack. They come in all shapes, styles and sizes. Some are especially made for shoes, while others might just be a series of hooks. Some come with pockets while others have narrow shelves. Just take a look at what’s around and what would work best for your closet – remembering you still have to be able to close the closet door once it’s hanging and being used.

If you have the space, one of the fairly simple DIY ways to transform your closet is to add another rail. It depends on the configuration of your closet but adding another rail doubles the hanging space. You can use the top rail for skirts and trousers and the lower rail for tops, blouses and jackets. All you need is a rail and two end placements and a screwdriver.

Make as much use of the top shelf as you can. This is the ideal candidate for stacking boxes of things you don’t use/wear often, or for your seasonal items.

If you’re lucky enough to have wooden shelves and dividers, a nice finishing touch is labels for each section. You can be as basic as a dynamo label (you know, those things that punch letters onto a plastic strip), or you can add a touch of class with some gold colored screw on metal plates with card paper labels.

You’ve invested all this time and effort and transformed your closet into a model of storage and space usage, and the epitome of tidiness. The only thing that remains is to make a resolution to keep it that way. It is New Year after all!

So, which weekend are you booking out in your schedule for organizing your closet for 2019? I’d love hear any of your own personal tips for organizing a closet. Please share!