If your wardrobe “eats” your clothes, you need this.
Quit fighting with your closet and get more visible, accessible and usable space right now with these tips from professional organisers.
1. Get rid of empty hangers and ditch the thick ones.
Often we’ll pull a shirt off of a hanger and forget that there is now an empty hanger tucked away on the wardrobe rod. Do this several times and suddenly, your wardrobe rod is wasting space with empty hangers.
“You’ll be surprised at how much space hangers that have nothing hanging on them occupy,” says Barbara Reich, professional organiser and author of Secrets of an Organised Mum.
Go ahead and move empty hangers to the front of the wardrobe. “This way, you can access them easily when you need to hang something up,” Barbara says, “and your wardrobe isn’t unnecessarily stuffed with empty hangers.”
And if you haven’t already swapped out your thick hangers for a thinner style, consider making the switch to double your hanging space, Barbara says. “A typical wood hanger is almost two centimeters thick while multiple hangers are a centimeter thick.”
2. Group short and long clothing.
Simply being aware of how you organise your hanging clothing can help open up space.
“Separate short-hanging stuff — tops, skirts, folded pants — from long-hanging — dresses, coats — and put short at one end of rod and long at the other end,” says Julie Morgenstern, professional organiser and author of Organising From the Inside Out and Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life.
"The more short-hanging space you can create, the more space below it you have to work with," she says.
Use that newly-found floor space to install stacking shoe racks for more levels of shoes, or add a small dresser for folded T-shirts, pyjamas and workout wear.
