Time to Get Organized

I've always dreamed of a swanky, custom-designed closet like the ClosetMaid picture above.  You see them on TV all the time.  And every time someone does a big home makeover, they include fancy closets with neatly spaced clothing on matching hangers.  I keep thinking that someday I'm finally going to make my possessions look as organized in my closet as they do in the picture above.

But let's be real, my closet is never going to look like the "normal person's" closet as pictured above.  For starters, I have shoes.  I mean, lots of shoes.  I own shoes for parties, for church, for working out, for wearing long jeans, for wearing short jeans, for wearing shorts, for wearing skirts, for walking through rain, for living in Texas (like cowboy boots), and for walking through the house in the middle of the night (did you know that Steve Madden makes awesome slippers?)!  Anyway, I need a shoe friendly closet. 

Next, I need lots of hanger space.  I happen to own lots of clothes.  But it's not because I hoard clothes.  I just happen to need appropriate clothing for all kinds of occasions.  I need clothes for my law firm job, for the court room, for church, for working out, for taking the kids on day adventures, for going to sporting events, for going to fancy parties, for going to backyard barbecues, for date night, for play dates, for working at home, and for any other event that might occur.  I also have a collection of maternity clothes that I'm not quite ready to let go of just yet.  (I mean, that collection wasn't cheap!)  So my dream closet also needs to have lots of room for hangers.

And finally, I need space for that man in my life.  Even though he doesn't own as many clothes as I do, my husband is over a foot taller than me and his clothes take up a lot of room.  Plus, we need a co-ed space with special man friendly features--like a tie rack, a place for belts, and special hanger space for his suits.

As I've started considering our needs,  I've come to realize that if I want a fantabulous closet, I'm going to have to add square footage to my already decent sized walk-in closet.  Or I'm going to have to do some serious organizing.  Thankfully, Dear Husband was on board with the latter.  So, we've spent the last week visiting every Lowe's Department store in our local area in order to put together an organized closet.  (FYI--Lowe's is actually much cheaper than Target and has a better selection.) We're not quite finished with our project (I haven't found matching hangers that I'm ready to commit to yet), but I'm already feeling kind of Zen in our newly organized space. 

It actually feels great to start out the New Year with something "new."  And it's good for the psyche to walk into your closet every morning and to be able to find things.  If you haven't organized your closet recently, go for it.  And if you need some plastic drawers like we all used during college to hold all of our "stuff," I have a decade's worth of drawers in my garage that you may have.