Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

How To Make Anything Look Better

Last week I was helping a client switch her closets from summer to winter. We’ve been doing this together for years, so we have a routine: a pile for the Goodwill, a pile for the drycleaner and another pile for items that need repair. We’d completed the swap and I was doing a quick organization of the hanging clothes and she said, “Oh, you always manage to make it look so great! It just looks so orderly, it makes me happy to look at it.”

Trust me, I can’t hold a candle to some of those Insta-famous organizers (though I’m pretty sure there are piles of stuff just out of the frame), but in my 22 years of organizing I’ve learned a few tricks. Here are a few tips to help make your closet look like I’ve been there:

Pick an Organizing Principal:

If I’m organizing a closet, not only do I put blouses together, pants together and so forth, but I’ll also organize by sleeve length and pant type (jeans, khakis, wool-trousers, for example) and within each category by color. So, your blouses might start with sleeveless or short-sleeved white, move through the rainbow to black and then start over again with white with long sleeves. But even ordering a category just by color or sleeve length can really be soothing to the eye—and make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Heel/Toe Your Shoes:

When arranging shoes on a shelf, I’ll often position the right shoe toe-forward and then nest the left shoe heel-forward. Not only does it save space, especially with high-heeled pumps, but it lets you see both the back and the front of the shoe. If you have two pairs of black patent pumps, but one of them has a red heel, you’ll be able to find them easily.

Pick a Fold and Stick With It:

There’s no right way to fold, but if you’re folding a stack of sweaters, you should fold them all same way, and to about the same dimensions. It takes practice, and a little mindfulness, but it’s worth it.  It’s also easier if you put all the thin crewnecks in one pile and all of the chunky turtlenecks in another.

And my best tip: Let stuff go. Stuff you never wore last summer, stuff you forgot about and aren’t even excited to wear this winter. Less is more. When you have fewer clothes, they don’t get crushed in overfull closets and drawers, and when you can see things, you can wear them.  And that, I’m pretty sure, is the goal.