I have this large closet in my hall way that I use to store all kinds of things – extra pots and pans, cleaning products, craft items, home school stuff (see the skull, it’s not real I promise)….pretty much anything I can’t find a home for. Yesterday when I opened it up to take something out I thought about how boring and bland it was. It’s so depressing to look in there! Plus things were starting to get out of hand in there – time to make a change!

By nature I’m not an organized person, I have to really work at it. I’m a willy nilly, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of gal. I don’t like structure or schedules and I would rather be making messes than cleaning them up. I have learned over the last few years that the best way for me to stay organized is to also make things beautiful. If my closet is pretty, I will keep it clean and organized. This closet needed to be a little prettier…and cleaner.

All it really needed to spruce it up was a little paint. I had some left over paint from a bathroom I painted a few weeks ago. The great thing about painting a closet is it forces you to take everything out first. Once everything was out and the closet was painted I was able to look at the space I had and all the things that were originally in there. I discovered that a lot of it I really didn’t need any more. I filled three garbage bags full of stuff to take to Good Will.

Before I started painting the closet, I had five shelves in there. After getting rid of things I didn’t need any more I decided to only put three back up. This gave me space at the bottom to bring in two cabinets I had sitting in my garage. These cabinets not only made the closet look a little nicer but it gave me some drawer space to put my large kitchen utensils that I don’t use very often.

I like the way my closet looks now and it’s much more organized. I can very easily see exactly what’s in there.

Below are a few great tips to organize your closets:
*Use baskets to hold both large and small items
*Use two tension curtain rods and attach to shelf vertically, one in front of the other, up against the wall. Use this space to store muffin pans and other slender items upright (see picture).
*Paint the walls a fun color, just make sure the paint is completely dry before putting shelves and other items back in.
*Put seldom used items at the top of your closet and items you use more often towards the middle or bottom so they are easier to get to.
*Don’t put boxes or other paper items too close to the light on the top shelf. This could cause a fire.

Happy organizing!