Closet organization is enough to make us cringe sometimes. While there are obviously many other places in the house we'd rather get organized — like our office or craft room, we're getting tired of just throwing clothes in the closet and thought that organizing would be a bit more fun if we arranged the clothes by color.
Whether your wardrobe is black and white or super colorful, organizing by color is a fun option. Either sort everything in order by color or go a step further and sort by type of garment and then by color. We really like how simple Mike's black and white closet (photo 1, above) is — whatever doesn't need to be hung, he just folds neatly in a dresser that he has tucked in an actual closet.
A great thing about organizing your closet by color is that it doesn't have to just be in your bedroom. Take the organizing to your coat closet or even your jewelry boxes. We currently have our earrings organized by color and it helps when we rush out the door and need to find that perfect pair.
Do you organize your closet by color?
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Combination of color and type of clothing.
Bottom rack -- pants, skirts and blazers
Top rack - Bulky sweaters, then year-round tops. Each grouping is internally arranged by color. It's the only way I can find anything in my closet.
Me, too. Top rack, vests by color, short sleeved shirts by color, sleeveless tops by color. Bottom rack, long-sleeved shirts by color, jackets by color. I have one section of tall rack for pant suits and long stuff, and since that's in a corner, it's arranged by how often I wear the things, most-often in front. Mine are those wire racks that are a shelf with the leading edge holding hangers. I fold and stack my slacks on the lower shelf which works out to just above waist height for me, and I don't hang clothes above them. (I never wear skirts, so they aren't in the mix.)
As I launder things, I try to rehang them in order, but if it slips a bit, I adjust at my biannual wardrobe purge.
I try (try being the key word) to keep my closet ordered by color.
-Chic Done Cheap
Ah, sure, organize clothes by color!!! Just don't dare to organize BOOKS by color (around here, at least!!) or all hell breaks loose!
we try to keep the hanging items in roygbiv but not always possible.
I love the thought of having enough jewelry or clothes to make organizing by color a chore :)
- Katie @ http://goodsy.wordpress.com/
I do this, too. It makes seeing what I have easier on the eye. Since we also have a wacky bungalow closet with no door, it makes it appear tidier.
I'm with LSUgrad03; I organize types of clothes and then, within those categories, by color. Makes everything very easy to locate when I'm still half asleep in the morning...
Yes, I arrange my jewelry and clothes by type and then by color. It makes it easier to pull together an outfit. My husband uses a two-drawer letter file cabinet in his closet as a sufficient substitute for a dresser.
I organize my closet and books by color and everyone compliments me on it. I don't get why people hate to organize books by color. It looks great in my place. But maybe b/c my apartment is mostly white.
This posting reminds me of my days when I worked at Nordstrom...their clothing items are usually displayed by color. Ha ha!
Somehow, that infiltrated my closet and to this day, I put my clothes away by type first (pants, sweaters, shirts, etc) but then by color. Visually, it's easier for me to get dressed daily and see where I can add color/interest.
But patrick, I've never come home to my 412 books and thought, "I want to read purple tonight." Or, when I have schoolwork, I don't want to try to remember what color the MLA Stylebook is. I'm sorry, it makes no logical sense whatsoever, unless your books are just for display.
Another type/color organizer - while it certainly does make getting ready more streamlined, it really helps me when I'm out shopping. If I can just close my eyes and see my closet, I can know that I really don't need yet another green shirt or black skirt...saves both sanity and pocketbook!
Thank God, other people do it too ! YAY !
My roomie keeps telling me I'm a freak because my wardrobe is so organized. Everything is sorted by type, then color. I love it.
Organizing generally doesn't come naturally to me (I'm inclined towards my own brand of organized chaos).
However, this is something I've been doing since high school. I organize by type of garment (including different sections for cardigans, sweaters, button-up shirts, long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved, tanks, etc). And then I organize by color within each subsection. It makes it MUCH easier to find what I'm looking for when I'm dressing in the morning. It also helps me rediscover items I've forgotten about (e.g. if I'm looking for a purple shirt to go with a skirt, I may stumble across one in the purple short-sleeved shirt section I had forgotten about, that would have never been considered if I organized stuff more randomly).
Whenever I'm having a "who's more OCD" contest I usually win with this:
clothes separated by type (shirts, skirts, pants, etc)
shirts sorted by color, then sleeve length, then fabric weight
The scary part is second nature and requires no thought on my part!
Organize by type, then length (of sleeve, skirt, etc), then color (I layer clothes because the office is cold, but outside, it's usually not).
In re books: I don't organize my books by color, per se, but occasionally, the bookshelf needs a bit of cohesiveness. So the yellow books in nonfiction are grouped together, and the white-jacketed books in the architecture/art section go together. It keeps my bookshelves from looking quite so helter skelter, and since I reread my books, it's pretty easy to remember that "Middlesex" is creamy, that "The Emperor's Children" is grey, and that "Making History" is red and white.
Yes, I do. I do it in rainbow color order, and then after purple comes white, grey, black, then pants and skirts.
I honestly don't have a ton of clothes, so it doesn't really look rainbow-y from the room (I don't think I own a single orange thing, for example) but it really helps me to have a dedicated place for everything, and I'm never digging through trying to find a black cami or something.
I read about doing this years ago & love it. I'm a very visual person so it makes dressing very easy. "Today feels like a purple day."
Oh yes, another colour order organizer here. I do it for the kids books also. Makes it so much easier to find books and for the kids to put them away not to mention fun!
If a person remembers the colors of book covers, then arranging them that way works. I don't remember the colors of book covers, and arrange by standard library rules. Whichever way works better for its occupants is the right way for that home.
i too organize by type, and within that by color. mostly because i'm a total zombie in the am when dressing, and only a little bit because i'm a control freak :P