You may be dedicating too much space to hanging room in your closet. If you wear a lot of dresses and suits, then you may need a lot of hanging space. However, you may be able to make better use of the space by installing some shelving. You can work around the existing bar, or take it down and get a new, adjustable bar. If you hang a lot of shirts and pants, you can double up the bar, using one for pants and one for shirts. You can keep a high bar on one side of the closet or the other for your longer items, like dresses. You may find that you still have the same number of feet of space for hanging that you did before, but now you have half of the closet that can be used for shelves, cabinets, and drawers.

If you’ve read anything at all about closet organization or design, you’ve probably seen the term “vertical space” a lot. Making use of the space that is normally wasted in the closet is a great way to get more things organized in a smaller space. You can look around the closet and see where space is wasted. Usually, it’s above the top shelf, on the floor, or on the front corners of the closet. Check to see if you can move your top shelf up and extend it out to the front wall of the closet. You may be able to push your hanging rods back a few inches, creating more space in the front of the closet.

After you’ve made room, think about how you use your closet. Things that you use most often should be front and center in the closet. Arrange shelves and rods based on how often you use your hanging or folded clothes. Looking at your current closet, you can identify problems that need solutions. Do your dirty clothes pile up in the floor? Is your closet full of clothes that you no longer wear? Do your shoes end up crushed in a mountain on the closet floor? You may need a space for a laundry basket, a bin for clothes that need to go to charity, or cubby-style shelves that run up the front corners of your closet for shoes.

Things, like formal wear and other dress clothes, are not used very often. These items should be the furthest back in your closet. Use sturdy clothes hangers, like wooden hangers, to hang heavier suits and coats. You can also store your out of season clothing up really high because you won’t need to access them very often. Using plastic containers with lids is a great way to store clothes for many reasons. If you pack your clothing items in separate containers, then you can use the containers for storage and display. For example, you can have your summer socks and winter socks in separate containers. Take down the one for winter, take off the lid, place it on the summer sock container, and simply switch them out. Making switching from one season to the other an easy process will help you to keep your closet organized year round.

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.

Don’t depend solely on the bar. If you only wear suits and dresses, then a hanging bar may be just fine for you. But, most people need to keep a lot more of their belongings in the closet. Figure out which arrangement of bars and shelves best suits your needs and change it up a bit. You don’t have to get elaborate. You can move your bar up to make room for another one below. You can move it down to make room for shelves above. Divide the closet so that you have shelves on one side and bars on the other. Whatever suits your needs is what is best for you.

Utilize space that normally is ignored or goes unnoticed. If you read closet organization sites, you will notice the term “vertical space” mentioned over and over again. This is because people don’t notice just how much space they are wasting. Shelves can go up to the ceiling. Use bins and other containers to store small items.

The rule of thumb when organizing your closet is to keep the most used items right in front of your face. You can design your whole closet with this concept. Imagine and omni light, bright in the middle and fading out to the edges. The center focal point should be the first thing that you go for in the morning.

Let’s say that you shower and go straight for the closet to get dressed. You should probably have a laundry basket or bin for wet towels directly in front of you or just to the side of your closet. A hook for your robe should be easily reached from the center of your closet. Right in the middle you can install shallow drawers for underwear. Shallow is best because you can actually see what you have. Imagine if your dresser were designed like a large cabinet style tool box. Lots of shallow drawers means that things don’t get crammed to the bottom.

Next come shirts. Do you wear t-shirts? Can you fold and stack them on a shelf for easy access? Maybe put a shelf directly above your drawer. Then your hanging shirts should be right there within reach. Pants, coats, dresses, etc. should be arranged in the order that you normally put them on. Shoes do not have to be on the floor. You wear them every day. Reserve the floor, side areas and top shelves for items that are seldom used.

If you need to make better use of your hanging space after you install drawers and shelves, get specialty shirt hangers and pants hangers that take up less space. You can coordinate outfits so that you can grab them and go, while saving up to half of the space on your bar by hanging them together. Enjoy your smartly designed closet!

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