Closets and Clothes Hangers » closet diy

Better Use of Your Space

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:46:27 +0000

If you’re looking to get organized, you probably have several goals in mind. You don’t want your home to look cluttered. You want to be able to find what you need when you need it. You don’t want to lose money due to your possessions getting damaged and lost. Keeping these things in mind, you can move forward and start to get your home under control.

The first thing to work on is finding a space for everything. If you’re like most people, you may feel like you’re short on space. This is why you need to open your mind up to seeing things a bit differently. You don’t necessarily need to invest in an expensive closet system, more furniture, or a truckload of plastic containers. You do, however, need to learn how to find storage where you didn’t know you had it before.

For example, you may feel like your kitchen cabinets are packed to the hilt and there’s no way you can get anything else in there. Making a few adjustments over time can help you to free up the space that you need. You may have a lot of mixing bowls, plastic storage containers, and casserole dishes in your cabinets. Slowly replacing these with ones that nest can greatly improve your cabinet space.

In the living room a simple entryway organizer can help to eliminate piles of clutter around the house. A table with a charging station for phones and other electronic devices, along with files or drawers for mail and other important papers coming in can help you to keep down a lot of the clutter.

In the bathroom, using separate containers for different categories of items can allow you to stack and use more space under the sink. Installing an extra shelf or riser in the cabinets can double the space that you thought you had.

Bedrooms can especially get out of control. You may have a computer, medications, arts and crafts, TV remotes, make-up, clothing, linens, camera or computer equipment, and more in there. Keeping the bedroom clutter-free means that you will have to figure out how to make more room in your closet. Small shelves, hooks, over-the-door organizers, and extra hanging bars can give you the room that you need to get some stuff out of the bedroom and into the closet. Don’t neglect the space around the ceiling as this is a valuable storage area. Use specialty hangers, like tie hangers, belt hangers, scarf hangers, and skirt hangers to get multiple items stored in a small amount of space. Clothes hangers that cascade from each other will help you to make even more room in your closet.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Storing All of Your Accessories

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:32:29 +0000

We use our closets for a lot more than just clothes and shoes. This is why a lot of clothing organizers don’t often solve all of your closet problems. We like to use our closets for everything that we want to keep out of sight. Everything from sports equipment to camera equipment can end up in your closet. Learning how to store these things correctly can help you to better manage your closet while making room for the things that you do use every day.

One option is to stop using your dressers for clothing and start using them for accessories and other closet clutter culprits. Dressers aren’t really designed very well for clothing that you use every day. You end up digging through folded stacks, folding and unfolding as you go along, destroying whatever semblance of organization that you once had. If the drawer isn’t large enough, you end up stuffing and cramming, wrinkling and possibly damaging your clothes.

You may be thinking that you need your dresser for your small items, like swimwear, underwear, socks, ties and belts, but there are plenty of specialty hangers on the market that will help you organize and hang these items to get them out of your dresser. Buckets and bins are great for storing socks and underwear in your closet, making room in the dresser for a multitude of storage items that you would like to get out of your closet.

Shoes are another thing that often clutter-up the closet. Are you tired of digging through a mountain of shoes to get to the ones that you want to wear? Are you tired of finally finding them only to see that they’ve been crushed or scuffed by the rest of the shoes? Why not consider getting the shoes out of the closet? You can store them in an orderly fashion underneath your bed. Choose a rolling drawer or container that easily slides in and out from under the bed. Use risers to make more room for taller shoes. You can use a trunk for out of season shoes, or stack them neatly up the corners of the closet in clear plastic shoe boxes.

Use specialty hangers to get your clothes organized as well. Skirt hangers, pants hangers, and other specialty clothes hangers are great for hanging multiple items from one hanging spot. Coordinate hangers allow you to pair items into outfits, quickly doubling the space. Cascading hangers allow you to hang a lot of items from the neck of one hanger. With just a few adjustments in your bedroom, your closet could be organized and free of clutter in no time.

Linen and Coat Closets

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 21:22:59 +0000

You are probably in the same boat with the rest of us. People’s closets seem to be a constant battle in many households. It’s not just the bedroom closets, either. The coat closets and linen closets become so cram packed that you can’t seem to use them for what you need to use them for. When your storage areas become so crowded that your home becomes overrun with shoes, coats, jackets, backpacks, blankets, pillows and towels, it is time to take action.

1) Laundry can become a big chore if you don’t have easy places to put things away. Towels, blankets, sheets and other linens can pile up on dressers and in our bedroom closets when the linen closet gets too full. The problem is that most homes are lacking in storage, so we end up putting things in places that are convenient. Therefore, that forty-pack of toilet paper is probably taking up a whole shelf in the linen closet. Things like humidifiers, heating pads, fans and other household items do need a place to go. Getting them out of the linen closet can help you to reclaim the space that you need to store your actual linens. Think about adding additional shelves to make better use of the space.

2) If you have more than one coat closet in your home, or a spare bedroom closet, then you are pretty lucky. One can be used for everyday items, such as purses, backpacks, shoes, and jackets. The other can be used for storage of sports equipment, winter boots, dress coats, and suits. If you don’t have an extra closet, then consider how you can make more space in the one that you have.

3) Look around the coat closet and see what you can do. If it’s a standard reach-in closet, you may be able to add little shelves to the front corners. This makes a lot of extra space for containers that can hold either everyday items or storage items. You can keep your camera equipment, school supplies, board games, and other household items that need a place to go on these simple shelves.

4) Use the right hangers in your closets to keep your clothing safe, even if it does get crowded. Cascading hangers are great for hanging multiple jackets and other light items. Use wood hangers or coat hangers for coats and suits so that they don’t get crushed. Clothes hangers are designed to save space, support shoulders, prevent slippage and more. Choosing the right hangers can make a big difference in all of your household closets.

Continuously Organized

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:06:08 +0000

Most people can figure out how to organize things around their homes. However, most people also have trouble staying organized year round. Keeping your home in perfect order may seem like a fantasy. If you can’t keep up with everything perfectly, do not fret. Becoming a truly organized person often takes years of practice and many baby steps are taken along the way. Use these organization tips and hints to start getting one small part of your life truly organized at a time. When one is under control, you can move on to the next thing. Your life will continually improve making that dream of being organized and staying that way much more feasible.

1) Doing things right the first time is important. Don’t camouflage problem areas or rake things into a box that you’ll never get to. If you haven’t been able to keep the area organized before now, then simply clearing it off is not going to get to the root of the problem. Figure out why things in this area keep getting messy. Create a solution to the problem so that things don’t pile back up putting you right back where you started. In fact, the focus of organizing shouldn’t be to get things “cleaned up”. Truly think about the fact that you are working on finding a solution to the clutter problem.

2) Develop good habits by training yourself for a few days. As you move around your house, talk to yourself out loud. When you set down your purse, wallet, keys, or cell phone, commentate your activity so that you are not mindlessly making messes everywhere that you go. This practice helps to focus the mind and keep the concentration on taking responsibility for your actions. If you have to say to yourself, “I am laying my jacket on the ottoman” instead of “I am hanging my jacket in the coat closet”, then you’re more likely to do what you’re supposed to do instead of taking the shortcut.

3) If shortcuts seem to be the way things go around your house, then cater to them. If coats come off the second people come in the door, then hang a hanging bar there stocked with clothes hangers, like coat hangers. It doesn’t matter that the coat closet is just a few feet down the hall. If habits die hard and it’s going to cause a daily fight in your home, then it just isn’t worth the stress. Figure out ways to make life easier for yourself when you organize and you’ll be on your way to being an organized person all of the time.

DIY Closet Tips and Tricks

admin — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 01:31:47 +0000

Fixing up your closet can be fun and rewarding. Because you know your own habits and desires, the results of a do-it-yourself closet job can be better than if you had hired a professional closet organizer. Use these tips and tricks to get you started. There are plenty of things to think of and feel free to use all of your creativity to make your closet one that you will truly love to use. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a lot, either. Closet organization can be a fun, rewarding and economical experience that has a big impact on your life.

1) Determine what you use your closet for most. Some people use their closets mainly for storage while others use them in place of a dresser in their bedroom. Categorizing items in your closet will help you to start to develop ideas about how much space you will need for each type of item.

2) If you’re using your closet for storage, then you need to keep the things inside of it safe. Cedar closet liners, cedar wood hangers, and other cedar products are great for closets. Cedar absorbs moisture, neutralizes odors, and repels pests. Use sturdy wooden hangers for coats, suits and dresses. You may want to invest in some garment bags to protect things from dust. If you don’t want to spend much money, you can get some inexpensive plastic shoulder covers to keep off the majority of the dust that might settle on your expensive coats and suits.

3) If you use your closet mainly for your clothing, then you may want to take everything out and decide how much room you’ll need for each category. You may have twenty pairs of pants, fifteen skirts, eight tank tops, four cardigans, and forty shirts. Arrange things by length to free up some space below the shorter items. You may want to use some cascading clothes hangers to coordinate outfits. You can also use these hangers for hanging multiple pants, skirts, or tank tops on one hanger.

4) Saving space is a good idea because theoretically, you want to end up with about 20% of the closet empty. This leaves you room to maneuver and find what you need when you need it. It also makes space for collecting items that you decide to give to charity, or for new items coming in. Keeping a small stash of out of season clothing on hand will help you to avoid the dreaded mix up of summer and winter clothes.

Home Storage Solutions

admin — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:20:31 +0000

Keeping organized once you get that way can be terribly frustrating! It takes a lot of time, effort, and schedule adjustments to get things organized. Nothing is more infuriating that getting it done and then seeing it almost immediately back how it was; cluttered and disastrous. Use these tips for tackling problem areas and implementing habits that will help you stay organized all year.

1) Getting it done right the first time is important. If you’ve somehow found the time to tackle an area, then you’re not likely to do it again anytime soon. Therefore, make sure that you do it right. Don’t focus so much on getting it done quickly as getting it done correctly. Dumping everything into a box that you’ll “go through later” is only masking the problem.

2) Find a specific place for things. If you think about it, you can categorize everything in your home. For most people, it becomes difficult when it’s time to organize random items, like the kids’ school work, old photos, knick knacks, souvenirs, and even sentimental clothing. If you actually make a list of what you own and divide it into categories, this category would probably be called “miscellaneous”. Ban the miscellaneous category from your life and you’ll begin to see things in an organized manner.

3) Miscellaneous just means that you haven’t thought about it or made an effort to compartmentalize these items. That’s why they build up and cause problems. They’re like the virus of your organized home, taking hold wherever you let them touch. Some things may seem like junk, but they are actually very precious to you. Take the kids’ school and artwork, for example. This is something that would be great to keep, so you make a stack. Eventually the stack has to be thrown away because it’s just mixed up with a lot of other junk. Fix this one problem by making a specific place for all of the kids’ work to go. A portfolio for each child will fix the problem. When you’re looking through their work and see something you want to keep, toss it in the portfolio. If it’s filed, it’s not junk, but the keepsake that you had hoped it would be. Make the file easy to access so that you actually use it.

4) Think conservatively. Only you can set boundaries for yourself. If your house is really full, then you’ve allowed yourself to own more than you need. Clothes can become a big problem because we’re constantly updating our style, size, or simply adding to what we own. Get your closets in order using special clothes hangers, like wood hangers, to keep them nice and neat. Get rid of something every time you bring something in and it will stay organized.

DIY Closets Know How

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:12:33 +0000

Creating a closet all by yourself is so fun and also a rewarding experience. Exercise your unique views and creative side by diving into a fun, DIY closet project. Cookie-cutter closet systems are often a waste because they don’t accommodate exactly what you need and end up wasting space, instead of saving space, in your closet. You are much better off either creating your own system or buying a modular system that helps you to make the most of the space you have. Use these guidelines to learn how to best determine what space you’ll need and which items can save you the most time, space and money.

1) Take an inventory of what you have, getting rid of whatever you can as you go through each thing. Experiment with categories of clothing, arrangements by length, color, use, or whatever you can think of that makes sense to you. The most common way to organize a closet is to put the things that you use most often in the front and center of the closet. Everything else will go around that central area getting further and further away as its frequency of use declines. You will need to decide what is most likely going to be effective for you and your habits.

2) Next you can play around with whether your clothing will take up less room hung or folded. Some things don’t necessarily need to be hung, like pajamas, for instance, but you may find that they take up less space when hung on hangers. You may be able to adjust the height of your hanging bar and add an additional bar near the floor, just high enough for your pants to hang. Play around a bit, taking measurements of folded stacks and calculating hanging bar space. You may want to consider clothes hangers that cascade from each other, making 2, 3, 4, or 5 items take up the space of one. This trick can save you a lot of space in the closet.

3) After you determine what is to be hung and what you want to be folded or kept in a container or drawer, start thinking about what types of storage would be most useful or efficient. If you use clear containers, you will be able to easily see what is inside. This will often times mean that you can use slimmer, deeper, or taller containers instead of bulky, shallow ones that take up too much space. Keeping shoes in plastic stackable bins allows you to free up closet floor space by stacking shoes up one corner of the closet. This space can be used for a laundry basket, out of season clothing storage, or whatever you need.

Work with your closet containers, shelving, hangers, and spaces to create a custom closet that is perfectly suited to you.

Rediscover your Closet

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:59:55 +0000

A small closet can be a real problem if you don’t have a good arrangement. Most closets sport one long hanging bar and one long top shelf. To make matters worse, this bar is often positioned in the exact center of the closet, wasting the space in front of and behind the bar. You can rearrange the closet configuration to make it meet your needs. Stop wasting closet space and get yours organized today.

Start by evaluating your priorities when it comes to storing things. Do you really need every single thing in your closet? Not only can you most likely get rid of a lot of things, but half of the things in there probably could be stored somewhere else. Make rules and boundaries for your precious closet space so that you can make it more efficient and effective for what you really need it for.

Blankets, suitcases, pillows and other items can come out of the closet and be stored underneath beds. You can put them into large plastic containers that will protect them from dust, pests, and pets. Categorize your storage items as much as possible so that when new things show up in the bedroom, you’ll know where you should put it. This will help you keep your closet organized once it gets that way.

Now that you’ve narrowed down what you want to keep in your closet, organize it outside of the closet. Use the bed or the floor to stack up the things that you want to keep in the closet. Play around with configurations to see what you like. Do you think you could make more space if you hung all of the items that are the same length together? Hanging all of your pants together, or smaller shirts together often makes room for a second bar, drawers, or laundry basket underneath. Doing this can actually double your space.

If you install a second bar, consider moving the top bar up a little. There is usually a lot of unused space by the ceiling, so you may be able to move that shelf up higher, too. If you have longer dresses that need a high bar, install a smaller one on one side or the other of the closet so that they can hang down. You may also decide to push the bars back so that you reveal space at the front of the closet.

If you do have some room at the front, you can install shelving. Corner shelves, cubby shelves, or just book style shelving can give you tons of extra storage in a small space. Utilize boxes, bins, baskets and buckets for these little hidden spaces.

When you are done, update your clothes hangers. There are many options here. You may love the look of luxurious wood hangers. You may decide to go with hangers that save space. There are also specialty hangers, like belt hangers and tie hangers that can help you keep the closet organized.

Getting the Most Out of Your Storage

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:01:03 +0000

Storage space can come at a premium in most homes. A lot of people complain about a lack of closet or storage space. This is especially true if you live in a small home or apartment. You may have to get creative to make living in a smaller space manageable. If you don’t have storage space, you may have to create it.

Sometimes you just need a little inspiration to get yourself going on the right track. Seeing things in a different light is helpful with almost anything. Adjusting the space that you need to store things in to fit the amount of things that you have to store can help you to find space that you didn’t know you had. It doesn’t necessarily take a lot of skill to reorganize in a way that helps you to keep clutter under control, but it does take a little bit of brain power and ingenuity.

If you have a large amount of stuff to get in order, it’s best to first focus on clearing out the floor. Getting the floor space free will make your home seem bigger and cleaner, right off the bat. Go around the house looking for problem areas. There are probably some piles of shoes, clothes, bags, and toys that pretty much live on the floor full time. Make spaces for these things first and you’ll be on your way to controlling clutter in your home.

Try hooks and bars to start. They are inexpensive and can help you in more ways than one. Make a space for all of those little things that just get thrown around. For kids, and some adults for that matter, it is best to make the storage area very easy to access and use. Reminders, in the form of decorations or distractions, can be helpful, too. Place a bin, storage bench, or chest in the area where you want your family to hide away bulky items, like boots or backpacks. If you hang hooks, help people avoid using the floor instead by placing a wastebasket, small table with a flower arrangement, or other distraction directly underneath. If they start to put their things there, they can easily reach for the hook instead.

Create extra space in the closet by using specialty clothes hangers. Hangers designed to make space are perfect for opening up a new area. Hang suits on coat hangers that also have a hanging bar for pants, instead of hanging them on separate hangers. Wood hangers are sturdy enough to hold your heaviest items without breaking. A good space saving clothes hanger is one that can hold more than one item. Other specialty hangers can help to easily organize ties, belts and scarves in a very small space.

How to Organize Your Closet DIY

admin — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:06:11 +0000

Organizing a closet can be quite the task. Knowing where to start, what techniques work, and what to do to make your organization last is important. Knowing what to do can save you time, space, and even money in the long-run. Using tips from professional closet organizers is a great way to make sure that you’re getting the job done right. They have certain things that they fall back on again and again. You can use the same techniques that they do to get your closet organized like a professional. We’ve compiled some of the basics that we feel are the most helpful at correcting problems that most people face when it comes to getting and keeping their closets organized. Use these tips and you’ll be organizing like a pro in no time.

1) Professional closet organizers always push people to get rid of as much stuff as possible. Most adults keep clothes an average of ten years after they are done wearing them! Just imagine how cluttered your closet can be if you’re keeping things for decades after you no longer use them. People have a hard time getting rid of clothing that has sentimental value. They also have a hard time giving up things that they paid a lot for, items that are good “wardrobe staples”, and items that are simply still usable. Get rid of what you can and turn the hangers around backwards on the bar for what’s left. As you wear things throughout the year, hang them back up correctly. At the end of the year, if something is still hanging backwards, get rid of it without a second thought.

2) Pros also like to divide clothing so that it’s easy to see what goes where. Casual clothes should be separate from work clothes, dress clothes, and workout clothes. Sectioning off your closet by dividing it with shelves or extra hanging bars is a great way to keep things visually separate. After that, you will need to hang shirts together, skirts, pants, suits, coats, etc. until everything has its own place in the closet. You can make room below your hanging clothes by lining things up by length. You may be surprised how much space you can make below your shorter shirts if you hang them together on the bar.

3) Finally, professionals always use matching clothes hangers. Coats should always go on coat hangers or sturdy wood hangers. Skirts and pants can be cascaded on specialty hangers and outfits can be coordinated on cascading or coordinate hangers. Using the right clothes hangers can not only save you space, but can help your clothing to stay organized, wrinkle free, and ready for use.