Inside my Closet

I’ve been meaning to write a closet reveal post since the day I decided to become a fashion blogger. For some weird reason, I absolutely love reading other bloggers’ closet posts. It is a good way to gather organization tips and find new ways to store difficult items. Plus I’m maybe just a tad bit nosy and love seeing the inside of people’s homes. Today I’m finally bringing you guys inside my closet.

It is funny that I waited this long to write this exact post because I have news!! If you read my post earlier this week then you know we are in the process of buying a new home. Well, the house we wanted ACCEPTED OUR OFFER!! We don’t have an official move date just yet, but it will likely be sometime in mid-May. This means two things. This post shows photos of my closet for the last 7.5 years, which next month will become the awesome closet for another wonderful family. This also means I’ll get to do another closet reveal post when we get into the new house. Woo hoo!

Alright, a couple things about my closet. There are a few good things about it and a few bad things. First, there are no windows in the closet and the lighting is TERRIBLE. I can’t tell you how many times I re-shot these photos and I still think they look awful. I always meant to replace the light fixtures to see if I could get something brighter, but when it comes down to it, I’d rather spend my money on shoes than closet lighting. #truth

Also, I don’t have one of those fancy, crazy expensive closet systems many other bloggers have (see my thoughts above about shoes). When we moved into the house, it came with a pretty good set-up with lots of space for hanging items. My husband built the shelves we now use for things like sweaters, his shorts and my leggings. Other than the shelves, what you see is what was there the day we moved into the house. I built my entire blog on being sensible so why tear down perfectly good closet shelves if I don’t have to?

The best part about my current closet is the size. It is big. We built our current house and I remember falling in love with the house as soon as I saw the closet. Our prior home in Ohio had maybe a 3’x3′ closet (literally) that Kurt and I shared, so the size of this closet was wonderful. Yes, I still had to share the space with my husband, but I’d take it any day over the shoe box we used before.

Now let’s get to it. I’ll explain my “organized mess” the best I can. I do have a full sized dresser in our master bedroom (see my master bedroom reveal here) where I keep things like underwear, shorts, t-shirts, tank top and swimwear. The rest of it is stored in my closet. I hang up all my jeans and pants on hangers so I can easily flip through them to find what I want. Truthfully, I love to have as much stuff hanging as possible so our set-up works well for me. I usually put two pairs of pants per hanger to save space. Wooden hangers tend to work better for things like heavy jeans, but thicker plastic ones are fine, too.

Next to my jeans on the bottom row, I store all my long sleeved workout gear, extra hangers, bags and skirts (have you noticed I NEVER wear skirts? I maybe own 5 total skirts). I recently went through a closet purge so there are a few more extra hangers than usual on the bottom row. That means I also have room to buy a few new things. Sorry, Kurt.

The entire top row on my side of my closet is full of tops. I organize all my shirts by sleeve length because often I choose my outfit based on the temperature outside. On the left, I start with sleeveless, short sleeve, 3/4 length sleeves, long sleeves, vests and lightweight jackets at the end. I store all my heavy winter jackets in our coat closet and guest room since I rarely wear those in AZ. I always dream about a closet organized by color, but it just isn’t practical. As pretty as color-coded closets look, the sleeve length system works for me to quickly find what I need.

Onto dresses. I’m lucky to have a lot of tall hanging space along the back wall. Again, I organize these by sleeve length with the long sleeved dresses on the left and then onto short sleeved, sleeveless, off the shoulder and maxi dresses on the far right. However, since I tend to wear mainly short dresses, this leaves room for my shoe organizers below.

 

I bought two of these mesh drawer sets from The Container Store probably 10 years ago when we were living in Ohio. We had zero room in our closet and I needed a place to store as many shoes in as small of a place as possible. As it turns out, I’m still using the system many years later. I actually went and bought a third drawer set a few weeks ago because I needed a few more drawers. I put most of the shoes I regularly wear like tennis shoes, sandals, slides, wedges, etc… in them. This way, they don’t have to be perfectly organized, but are out of the way.

I store a lot of my nicer heels and shoes I don’t wear as frequently in plastic shoe boxes (also from The Container Store) on the top shelf above my tops. Finally, I also have a row of shoes on the shelf above my jeans, right below my tops. Basically, I have shoes all over the place. #shoehoarder

Onto handbags. My shoe drawers also have slim drawers on the top where I store my flat clutches. On top of my dresses, there is a shelf where I keep all my larger bags that don’t really fit anywhere else. I also have some bins containing my older purses I don’t really use, but don’t want to give away just yet. Finally, I have a set of hooks on the side wall that juts out where I keep some of my cross-body bags and purses I use all the time.

Back in my Ohio days, I wore A TON of scarves. I’ll admit, I don’t wear them as frequently in AZ, but I still love a good scarf from time to time. I keep all my lightweight scarves folded and hung up above all my husband’s random “man boxes”. No clue what he keeps in those, but whatever. I had to give him some space. I keep all my heavy winter scarves in bins on top of the shelves. Again, I really only wear those when I travel so they don’t need to be within arms reach. You can also see Kurt stores his pants in the hanging section below my scarves and his wood boxes.

I mentioned the shelves Kurt built above. This is by far our biggest shared space where my stuff is mixed in with his. Honestly, I have to give my husband props because he really never complains about my stuff taking over his. We’ve rearranged many times over the years, but overall, it works for us. In the bamboo bins I keep my leggings. PS if you are folding your leggings somewhere, consider a bin. It works so much better. Kurt and I both keep our sweaters folded and he stores his shorts in this area as well. You can also tell Kurt has a few of his shoes lined up in organizers near the floor.

While we are talking about men’s closet organization, I’ll show you the rest of his area. Kurt also has the entire back right corner of the closet to himself. He hangs all of his shirts (polo, button down and long sleeve) and uses a hanging shoe organizer for his insane collection of hats. Also, he has sweatshirts folded up top and shoes down below. He rarely wears suits so he stores those in our guest closet.

Finally, let’s end with my jewelry organization. I have a lot of costume jewelry and I looked for years for a good system. I found this wall jewelry organizer on Amazon and it worked so well for me that I ended up purchasing a second one. The organizer now has a locking feature and LED lights since I originally purchased it back in 2010 (#fancy). However, it just flat out works. There is enough space for short necklaces, long necklaces, earrings, watches, rings, bracelets and other random stuff.

So there you go. My LONG OVERDUE closet reveal is complete. It isn’t my dream closet, but it is big and it works. I can’t tell you how often I am asked where I store all the stuff I receive in the mail and it is all right here. I do my best to share with my friends and family, donate to Goodwill and I even recently started a Poshmark store to help with the overstock.

What do you guys think? Any organization tips you’d like to share with other readers? Are you also looking at houses for sale in Phoenix? Let me know in the comments below!