de Jong Dream House: Organizing our Master Closet

I've been wanting to establish some order in our master closet for a while, but wasn't quite sure what to do. I've learned that often the best way to organize is to think about it, live with it, and observe what was working and what isn't.

Here's a look at what our closet looked like when we moved in four months ago:

My side.

Niels' side.

We really like the basket drawers. They are much cheaper than buying a dresser. And the baskets are less expensive than the solid drawers. It's nice to be able to see what's inside (usually!) and is better for ventilation. (This is also why we don't have a door to our closet. We're the only two (other than the blog world) who see it, so we liked the idea of keeping it open. However, now that we've been here for a few months, what we would have rather done is put a mirrored pocket door in, and have another row of shelving/drawers against the back wall. Live and learn.

This is what my side of the closet looked like before I started organizing. The drawers work great. On the rods, I have short sleeved shirts on top, long sleeved shirts on the bottom, and pants and dresses on the tall rod. Clearly, I had no plan for the shelving.

Inspiration struck today when I found some totes at Big Lots. I would have preferred all purple ones, but alas, I found only find two purple, and four green (during the first trip, anyway!). I was happy to see that they fit two to a shelf. I had some cute tags left over from our wedding--almost five years ago!--which were perfect for labeling each tote. I used sticker letters from Target for the labels.

Note the little fingers of the boy who just learned to read.

To attach the tags, I used some silver stretchy string from a necklace project I did with D several months ago.

Making some progress!

I'm always learning from blogs, Pinterest, and friends how to organize better. Last week I was talking to my neighbors about closets, and they both said that they keep their empty hangers to the side so they are easy to find when hanging up their clothes. I never thought about doing that, but it sure makes sense.

Last night, we drove to another Big Lots to see if they had more purple totes. They did! I was able to add "Swim" and "Foundation" totes, which mean Niels now has full use of his drawers.

The second Big Lots also had blue totes, so we got four of those for Niels' closet. I need to pick up some more letter stickers for his tags.

See that empty drawer? Not empty anymore. I moved his comfy pants from the tote to the drawer.

The last thing I did was put the white baskets that were above my pants and dresses above my shirts. Those hold things I really don't use much. Since I lost the home for my motivation marbles, I decided that I would use the shelf above my pants and dresses as my motivation shelf. In addition to the marbles, I will be putting a big photo of me from 2010, when I was 25 pounds lighter.