How to Organize a Clothes Closet by Color

"I have nothing to wear!" is a common phrase uttered by women everywhere. No matter how many clothes you have, sometimes you just can't find anything that matches, or you've completely lost track of your favorite black skirt. Organizing clothes by color makes matching easy and lets you know right away what your options are. It also cuts down on hunting for items. That black skirt will be with all the other black items and nowhere else (except maybe the laundry)! Follow the steps below to organize your clothes closet by color and make your life easier. These steps will work for women's and men's clothes and children's closets, too.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Clear workspace to fold and arrange clothes (top of bed or floor space)
• Shoe shelves or clear plastic bins for shoes (optional)

Hanging Clothes

1. 
    
   Separate clothing into categories of like items.

   Decide on three or four categories of clothing: tops, bottoms and jackets/blazers are three easy and basic categories. Women may also have dresses and long coats. If you have a large closet with more than one clothes rod, choose the best areas for these categories. Dresses and coats require more hanging room than shorter shirts and pants that are folded over a hanger. (See Tips section.)

2. Start with an easy category first, like blazers. They're easy to identify among the rows of clothes, and you probably have fewer of them than you do shirts.

3. Clear out some space. Remove 10 or more pieces of clothing from where you plan to work and set them aside for later. Clothes hangers should slide freely back and forth on the rod so it's easy to rearrange.

4. Select a blazer from your collection and hang it in the open space. Move the rest of clothes down to fill the space you took the jacket from.

5. Find your other blazers and one by one, hang them next to each other. Put matching or similar colors together. If you have only a few items, this will be a quick task.

6. 
    
   Organize in a pleasing color progression.

   Move on to the next category. If you end with a gray blazer, start with gray pants next to it. You want the color arrangements to be a pleasing progression. Think of a rainbow and how one color works into the next: yellow to orange to red, for instance.

7. Repeat the process until all the categories are done. Depending on the size of your closet, this can be time-consuming. Leaving the clothes on the rod and just shifting them helps save steps and keeps the clothes from getting wrinkled in a pile.

8. Retrieve the original section of clothes you removed for space. Integrate them into their proper sections and colors.

Folded Clothing

9. Remove clothing from shelves and place on one end of the bed.

10. Separate into different color families. Fold items into stacks of color, in the free space left on the bed.

11. 
     
    Keep colors together.

    Place the new stacks of color on shelves, keeping similar colors together. If the shelves are over your hanging clothes, try to keep the color categories together with the matching hanging clothes underneath.

Shoes

12. With shoe shelving, remove all the shoes and start over.

13. 
     

    Put the colors you wear most often (usually brown or black) on the shelves that are easiest to reach.

14. Place similarly colored shoes together on the remaining shelves.

15. If shoes are loose on floor underneath your clothing, try to cluster the colored shoes underneath the corresponding colors of clothing.

16. Purchase clear plastic shoe boxes so shoe colors are visible. Stack similar colored shoes together in rows on the floor or on available shelves.

Tips & Warnings

• Items of a similar type stack together more easily and stay neat longer. If you've got folded jeans or printed tees, put these in separate piles from your folded sweaters.
• Organizing by color can also help when you go shopping. If you have an entire shelf of beige sweaters, you now know to buy a different color next time!

Resources

• Find shoe storage options at the Container Store!
• Find a wide variety of clothes hangers at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

[ValerieDavid]

on 12/13/2007 Thank you for your comments, glad you enjoyed the article! CCrock, I didn't realize I was doing proper retail organizing of my clothes! That's interesting to hear. :) It took my husband a little while to get used to the color idea but now he keeps his pretty much in order, too, heh. -- Grouch, it doesn't really take too long to reorganize this way, especially when you keep everything on the rack. It's just a bit of shifting. Are the kids big enough to help? :)

[CCrock]

on 12/13/2007 Great article. I have countless times organized my closet in a similar way, but it never stays that way! Essepcially since getting married! lol. I'll never forget ROYGBV from my retails days...the order in which colors should go.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet/purple, then white and black.

[CCrock]

on 12/13/2007 Great article. I have countless times organized my closet in a similar way, but it never stays that way! Essepcially since getting married! lol. I'll never forget ROYGBV from my retails days...the order in which colors should go.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet/purple, then white and black.

[grouch]

on 12/13/2007 What a wonderful way to keep your clothes. I find myself asking where would I find the time and could I really keep it that way. Chasing two kids while typing. Thanks again.