Ann Moore Spencer

Do you have prob­lems find­ing clothes? Is fig­ur­ing what to wear a chal­lenge? Is the clos­et burst­ing at the seams? Or do you have a walk-in clos­et that dis­ap­points? Ide­al­ly your clos­et should be your one-stop shop for stor­ing your cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories. I have some ideas for you.

1. Think bou­tique. Or­gan­ise your clos­et like an at-home bou­tique: store like ar­ti­cles to­geth­er and group sim­i­lar colours. Sort your clothes by type, then by colour; arrange them from the light­est to the dark­est.

2. Pay at­ten­tion to light­ing. Light the clos­ets, draw­ers and oth­er en­closed ar­eas. You can be elab­o­rate with ful­ly wired pot lights or you can use low volt­age LED lights. Al­so in­clude task light­ing in the dress­ing and make­up ar­eas. Please con­sid­er us­ing day­light or nat­ur­al light bulbs. They are more flat­ter­ing on skin tones and for less dis­tor­tion of colours. It is eas­i­er to make cloth­ing se­lec­tions with bright light. For some added glam­our, in­clude pen­dant lights or even a chan­de­lier for am­bi­ent light­ing. Place a switch on the wall out­side the clos­et and place lights in the first 8 inch­es of a reach-in clos­et and have one light every 4 x 6 feet of a walk-in clos­et.

3. Mir­rors, mir­rors, mir­rors. Floor length mir­rors in a walk-in clos­et or on the in­side or out­side of the door of your wardrobe is in­valu­able for see­ing how you look in your wardrobe choic­es.

4. Or­gan­ise rods op­ti­mal­ly. Cater for no less than 48 inch­es of width per per­son for hang­ing space. Al­low 63-68 inch­es rod height for reg­u­lar dress­es and 78 inch­es for for­mal dress­es; 54 inch­es high will ac­com­mo­date trousers hang­ing full length. Mount the rod at 48 inch­es for chil­dren's clos­ets. You can dou­ble the space by us­ing two rods for hang­ing shirts, blous­es at the top and fold­ed pants and skirts in the bot­tom. Mount the low­er rod at 40-42 inch­es and the high­er rod at 80-85 inch­es.

5. Vary the heights of shelves. En­sure that your clos­et has shelves of dif­fer­ent heights. Store fold­ed clothes, hand­bags, hats, caps, linen, etc., on shelves. Place shelves at least 4 inch­es over the rod. Shelv­ing should be about 16 inch­es high for cloth­ing and 7 inch­es high for shoes. Al­low 9 inch­es wide for one pair of men's shoes and 7 inch­es for fe­male shoes.

6. Size. In an av­er­age sized room cater for 4 to 6 feet for a reach-in clos­et. Reach-in clos­ets are an av­er­age of 24 inch­es deep. Walk-in clos­ets should be over 6 feet wide and 11 feet in width; this al­lows for a cen­tre is­land. A 5 foot depth al­lows for an in­ward swing­ing door and for stor­age on the back wall.

7. In­vest in stor­age or­gan­is­ers. Small loose items can be a chal­lenge. For a more stream­lined look, use la­belled bas­kets and clear bins on shelves to store sim­i­lar items. Scarves, socks, un­der­wear, hats, etc. will no longer have the pow­er to dri­ve you crazy. Jew­ellery or­gan­is­ers will pro­vide spe­cif­ic stor­age for neck­laces, bracelets and watch­es, rings, brooches, etc. When every­thing is laid out in an or­gan­ised fash­ion (and in plain sight), se­lect­ing the per­fect ac­ces­so­ry is eas­i­er and more fun. Use draw­er di­viders so that each item has its own space.

8. Add a van­i­ty. A nat­ur­al lo­ca­tion is above a bank of draw­ers. Add a mir­ror and lights. If the van­i­ty is re­cessed be­tween the walls of 2 cab­i­nets, place mir­rors on all 3 sur­faces. This is per­fect for see­ing your­self from dif­fer­ent an­gles. A van­i­ty of­fers a per­fect spot for per­fumes, creams, de­odor­ants, etc.

9. Add a seat. Even if it is on­ly a small stool, seat­ing will make it eas­i­er to put on shoes, boots, socks and stock­ings. If you have a reach-in clos­et, your seat­ing can be lo­cat­ed some­where close to the clos­et.

10. Add hooks. They are in­ex­pen­sive and very ef­fec­tive. You can use ver­ti­cal sur­face space (that would have oth­er­wise been wast­ed) to hang scarves, belts, ties, small bags and jew­ellery.

11. In­clude ham­pers. Your dirty clothes will have some­where to go oth­er than on the floor or over the back of a chair. Add mul­ti­ple ham­pers and sort the clothes when you take them off. Bins that tilt out of the cab­i­netry of­fer an aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing and high­ly func­tion­al op­tion. Con­sid­er hav­ing a ham­per ded­i­cat­ed to clothes that you want to do­nate. If you try it on and it does not fit or you can­not de­cide what pos­sessed you to buy it in the first place (or you are just plain tired of it), toss it in the 'do­nate' ham­per. Line the ham­per with a bag, so that when it is full you can just tie up the bag and take it to your favourite char­i­ty. For items that are use­able, toss them im­me­di­ate­ly in­to the trash. Purg­ing un­want­ed items helps to keep the clos­et clut­ter free.

12. In­vest in good hang­ers. Wire hang­ers are not good for your clothes. In­vest in good wood­en hang­ers. It would be nice if all the hang­ers are the same. The uni­for­mi­ty looks nice and re­duces vi­su­al clut­ter and dis­trac­tions.

13. Get cre­ative. Add colour, pho­tos or some art. Wall pa­per or paint the back of the clos­et or the walls of the walk-in. In a walk-in use a colour­ful rug.

14. Fo­cus on the doors. Use mould­ings and trims, dec­o­ra­tive knobs and han­dles along with cre­ative us­es of paints, de­cals, etc., to bring fo­cus to the clos­et. Reach-in clos­ets and cab­i­netry should be con­sid­ered a dec­o­ra­tive piece and its style in­te­grat­ed in­to the d&ea­cute;cor of your bed­room. Swing doors are best for a clear and un­ob­struct­ed view of the clos­et con­tents. The in­side of the doors of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties for mir­rors and hooks for ex­tra stor­age. Bi-fold doors rank 2nd in func­tion­al­i­ty with al­most as much ac­cess as the swing door, but noth­ing can be mount­ed to the back of the door. Slid­ing doors are great for small rooms but you on­ly have ac­cess to 50% of the clos­et at a time and you can­not use the back of the doors.