Posts Tagged ‘Closet’

Bringing Organization Out of the Closet System and Maximizing Storage

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

A closet organizer, particularly if it has been designed specifically for you, saves a lot of space and it makes it easy to find and put away items. If you look at the various shelves and cupboards in a closet system design, you may be able to get even more space or organization from each space and the rest of the room. How? Here are some accessories you might want to consider.

Closet Organizer Shelves

If you look at the shelves of the closet system in question, chances are you will be able to improve that with a few smart additions. Even if it has adjustable shelving, open space is often evident. Additional shelving and baskets that hang off the top shelf can further boost the available room without cluttering up the system intended to keep things clean.

Deep corners are another problem. Make these areas more efficient and easier to use with spring loaded corner shelving, pull out baskets, and turntables if need be. Dividing larger sections into smaller segments help you use these great spots successfully. Shoes, socks, unmentionables, ties, and other small items will stay neater, are easier to put away, and they are more likely to stay that way.

Closet System Drawers

The pulling open and slamming shut of drawers give these areas their own unique set of issues. To keep everything from sliding and crashing into each other, use dividers. If you didn’t have them premade when you had the closet organizer built, you can purchase removable ones from many home stores. Shallow baskets are a good substitution. In fact, may people find them better because it is faster to rearrange the various items when it just isn’t working for you.

Hanging Items

Your custom closet system likely already has bars at different heights to accommodate the various lengths of clothing you already have. However, items you are using constantly and those that you want to keep separate from the rest for a reason often cause problems. Add a few small hooks to the closet organizer so that you can quickly slip things on and off them to still keep things neat. If you don’t have enough room, add over-the-door hooks — just be sure they won’t knock holes in the wall behind them!

Dealing With Miscellaneous Knick-Knacks

Everyone has a group of mixed items that they need and use, but are difficult to store. Makeup, toys, and other items of various sizes may do better in a basket. Look for styles that pull out like a drawer or fit onto hard to reach areas like the top shelves. For items such as sweaters that take up a lot of space, slip them into a few sweater bags and get rid of the extra air or set them into containers that fit under the bed. When the seasons change, you can easily trade your favorite summer tops for sweaters without worrying about where you will store them. You can store purses and backpacks in much the same way.

Whether you have a large walk-in in San Diego or a small Las Vegas closet organizer [http://www.crowneclosets.com/], you simply need to be able to grow with you in order to be effective. These additional accessories are inexpensive, easy to use, and quick to move around. Once your closet system is in order, you can move the same concepts outside to the rest of the room and throughout the house to reduce stress and waste less time cleaning it up.

Christine O’Kelly writes for the talented Las Vegas closet system [http://www.crowneclosets.com/] provider Crowne Closets. They create Las Vegas closet organizer solutions for virtually any space to keep life organized and stress-free.

Closet Shelf Organizers – 3 Simple Ideas to Help Tame Your Closet

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Closet shelf organizers can help take the tornado out of your closets. If you’re anything like me, you have the best of intentions, but some days, especially at the end of the day, it’s just quicker to throw everything in, close the door quickly and forget about the mess.

Short term, that’s a plan and it works just fine. But do that too many days in a row and you’ll be living in a permanent state of rebellious-closet syndrome.

The solution is a series of closet shelving organizers so easy to use, and so efficient, that they entice you into better organization.

Here are my top three picks:

Top Pick 1: Drawer Dividers

You can buy these ready assembled and either spring-loaded or regular. They are useful for subdividing everything from ties and socks to makeup and underwear. If you want, you can make your own by taking shoeboxes and adding cardboard dividers stuck down with sticky tape. Younger children will enjoy making these as a craft project and painting them in different colors and designs. The more they have invested effort in making them, the more they are likely to use them, too.

Top Pick 2: Shoe Racks

How much time have you wasted looking for the other shoe? If you ask me, there’s a conspiracy and I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. The easiest way by far to keep shoes together is to invest in a shoe rack. There are essentially two types and which one you prefer depends on the space you have available. If you have plenty of floor space, go for the horizontal racks which sit neatly underneath hanging space. If not, and you have either free hanging space or an available door, get the hanging racks which have cubbies for each pair of shoes.

Top Pick 3: Shelf Dividers

However carefully I fold and stack clothes in the kids’ closets, it’s a matter of days before everything is chaos again. Part of the problem is just that the built-in closet they use has a long stretch of horizontal with no upright to stop things getting out of hand.

The solution is shelf dividers, used at regular intervals along the shelves, which keep shirts, shorts, jeans and everything else in their allotted space. It’s a quick way to reclaim order out of chaos.

If you don’t want to splurge on shelf dividers, simply buy inexpensive plastic baskets which are the right shape and size for the clothes you need to corral.

So there you have it. Three simple ideas for closet shelf organizers which will stop you cringing every time you leave the closet door open.

Joel Benstein is a Do-It-Yourself enthusiast. Over the years he has taught himself basic plumbing, electrical repair, window screen construction, gardening and landscaping. He is also an avid woodworker. You can see examples of some of his projects and get ideas and information for shelving in your home at http://www.home-shelving-guide.com