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Closet Space
Though it's not the space you show off to guests, and it's not a space you spend a lot of time in, getting your closet organized makes sense. Just think: no more searching for pairs of shoes or ironing that incredibly wrinkled shirt that was shoved in a too-tight space. Follow these steps to open the door and clear up that space you call a closet

A cluttered closet is a waste of your time. If you spend more than a couple of minutes every morning searching through your closet—or if you put things away in your closet simply by shoving them wherever there's room—then your closet isn't working for you. Fortunately for you, help is on the way.

We spoke with Beth Levin, a Miami-based professional organizer and president of The Closet Queen (www.closetqueen.com), to get her tips for creating—and keeping—an organized closet. The first step, according to Levin: Set aside a couple of hours, put on comfortable clothes, turn on some good music, and get to it. Here's more expert advice to save you time and aggravation in the storage space you visit every day.

Designate the space. "A lot of people will keep things other than their clothes in a clothes closet," Levin says. "You don't want to do that." Storing linens (or the good china) where your clothes should be is just going to eat up what little room there is in your closet. Move items that don't belong in your closet to another storage area.

Toss, donate, sell, or keep. Once you've settled in, you're going to put your hands on every single item in your closet and decide if it stays, if it's garbage, if it's in good enough shape to donate to charity, or if it's new enough to sell. Anything that isn't staying gets taken out of the closet and put into one of three garbage bags: the "toss" bag, the "donate" bag, or the "sell" bag. If you can't decide if something should stay or go, put it in a plastic container, and move it to the back of your closet. In 3 months, revisit it. "If you haven't missed those items in that time, you probably won't ever," says Levin. "Just get rid of them."

Group like items. When the initial weeding process is complete, it's time to rearrange. "All the pants go together; you can color coordinate, beige goes with beige, jeans go with jeans, black with black, that kind of thing," Levin explains. "Do the same thing with every category of clothing." When you're done, you'll have a cleaned-out closet with everything rearranged—with a purpose. "You should be able to say, 'I need a pair of pants' and go right to them," says Levin.

Hang, hook, or box. Make a list of the things that end up on the floor of your closet, or perched on the top shelf: shoes, belts, sweaters, etc. Then, decide how you're going to store them. "If you have a free wall, you can always build some shoe shelves," says Levin. (Her recommendation: the modular, stackable Organize It shoe cubes available at Target®.) "Belt racks are inexpensive—you can find them at places like Target® or Wal-Mart®—and work well; you can also use them to hang purses and things like that. Put things that you don't use very often on the top shelf—things like suitcases or sweaters. They'll be out of the way, but accessible."

Be creative. Use anything that makes it easy for you to stay organized. "You can use a fishing tackle box to store jewelry," Levin says, "or drape a dry-cleaning bag over a low rod as a place to shove items that need to be dry cleaned. It keeps them off the floor." The important thing is knowing right where everything is and being able to spot things immediately. "If you can't see it, you can't use it," Levin explains.

Start a new habit. So, how do you keep your freshly organized closet looking and working its best? No trick here: Every day, you need to put everything back where it belongs. "It only takes about 5 minutes a day to put your things away," Levin says. Your motivation? "If you don't do it, you're going to spend an hour or two on the weekend putting everything away," Levin adds. And that's no fun at all.

Give the gift of organization. Gift Certificates available upon request.