I Showed a Pro Organizer My “Disaster” Closet, and Here’s How She Fixed It

I was so excited when I first moved into my current apartment. I was going to get my own office — with a door that closes! — and an enormous closet. So I carefully arranged my possessions in there, but then, I started to store other things. The extra space heaters that weren’t being used. Reusable bags I didn’t have space for otherwise. And then, my yoga ball, some photo albums, travel bags, and extra shelves. One day I looked into the closet from my desk, and realized it was a disaster.

I was in need of some professional help, so why not ask a pro organizer to take a look at my closet and give me some advice on taming the mess? I reached out to Jean Prominski, a certified professional organizer and owner of Seattle Sparkle, to get her advice on how to fix this space. Here’s what she recommended.

Prominski’s first suggestion was to put the things I rarely use toward the back and in the harder-to-access spaces. That meant shuffling around some shelves so I could fit my yoga ball on the top, and boxing up my portfolio pieces with desiccant (the little “do not eat” packs that keep moisture away from important things). Since those are personal archives that I only access sometimes, they should go on the left side with the yoga ball.

Prominski also suggested I rearrange my treasured items storage so it would all be on the bottom in the back of the closet since I honestly never go into the bins I use to store everything.

Next, we tackled my craft projects. I had one open-storage cart for some of my yarn — the IKEA RASKOG cart — and the rest stuffed into a set of plastic drawers. At Prominski’s suggestion, I got two more of them and moved all the yarn to open-storage carts. We both agreed yarn looks so much lovelier when it’s on display.

The third stop on our closet organization journey was to manage the items I use regularly. In my first iteration of the closet, I had extra copies of my books for signings stacked up on their side on a wire shelf. I was worried they would fall through the shelving if I stood them upright.

Prominski suggested something obvious I hadn’t considered: putting something solid on the shelf to stop the books from falling through. Her idea was foam core or cardboard, but I was at IKEA already and wanted to get creative when gathering organization supplies. So I bought four plastic placemats for a dinner table and used them as a shelf liner. It works perfectly.

My reusable bags, which were pretty much all over the floor of the closet, were corralled into an IKEA DRONA box and stored on a shelf. But my favorite suggestion of everything Prominski shared? Move my travel backpacks to the front and hang them on hangers for easy access. It was such a smart decision and something that makes absolute sense. They’re easy to get to, I can quickly decide which bag I need to take, and they look great hanging there.

I did have to make a couple of changes from our discussion. We talked about adding another shelf to hold the space heaters and my portfolio pieces, but I didn’t have any extra shelves as I thought. A little bit of rearranging, though, and the solution is perfect with magazine boxes on two shelves. I also wanted to get rid of the set of drawers, but it turned out to be the perfect storage solution for in-progress projects. And, my Sparkle Mat fits easily in front of it for quick access.

If there’s one thing you can take away from Prominski’s advice for me, it’s to make sure items you use regularly are close at hand. I used to have to pull everything out of the closet to get to my backpack and travel pillow on the top shelf in the back. But now it’s all at my fingertips — and I feel like I have a new lease on my closet’s life.