Organising your drawers
A drawer for each item of clothing. Tops in a separate one. Bottoms in a separate one. Pyjama’s in another. Then a drawer for things like bras (for girls), underwear, belts.
In the tops drawer, put them into size piles, with the ones you wear the least going at the bottom. For example, any vests, crop tops or thin tops (i.e. sheer tops) go into one pile. Putting the least worn ones at the bottom means you are less likely to make the drawer a mess and ruin the piles. In an average drawer, you can make six piles.
In the bottoms drawer, put them into piles of what type of clothing they are. Once again, put the ones that do not get worn often at the bottom to stop the drawer looking messy. So, the jeans go into one pile, although they can be quite thick so it might take two depending on how many pairs you have. For fancy going-out trousers, hang them in them in the wardrobe to stop them from creasing. This can also be done for jeans.
In the Pyjama’s drawer simply arrange the them with their matching piece of clothing. Try putting the ones you don’t wear as much at the back of the drawer instead of at the bottom of the pile. Then, you can make your way through your favourite ones that are at the front of the drawer and by the time you have worn and washed them, you should just be wearing your last pair from the front row.
For the miscellaneous drawer, purchase six baskets to put all the different things in. One of them being underwear, you could even dedicate two baskets to underwear for the different types. Then the next one will be socks, all paired up so it is easier for you to find the ones you are looking for and it creates more room. Again, you could dedicates another basket to unmatched socks, then they are not aimlessly lying around your room and it is easier to match them when you do find a pair. Another basket could be filled with outfit accessories, like belts, hats, scarfs or gloves. Not a very exciting thing to have in your drawer but at least it is somewhere to put all that stuff, like where do you even store hats? For the last basket, ladies this one is for you, use it to stores bras. It will save you from the embarrassment of forgetting you have thrown bras on the desk when you have someone round.
Organising your wardrobe
First things first, hang the same items of clothes with each other. Some prefer to colour code their wardrobes but I think it looks much neater when tops are hung with tops and dresses hung with the rest of the dresses. It’s not just for the look either, I guarantee it will make finding items you are wanting much more easier when you know to look in the top section of the wardrobe.
Deciding what to hang can be tricky, but instead of focusing on what pieces of clothing you like best that gets the luxury of being hung, look at what they are made out of. Clothes made from these materials should be hung:
- Silk
- Linen
- Viscose
- Cotton
- Chiffon
- Velvet
A wardrobe is also a great way to store shoes. An unfolding shoe-rack that fastens over the rail and unfold with lots of slots to put your shoes in. Organise by having trainers taking up the top few spaces, flats the middle ones and, for the ladies, heels at the bottom. If you are not living in a university hall or student house and you can do whatever you like to your room, get a wooden hanging self bracket holder and hang the shoe-rack from that. Then you can buy a much larger one and fit more shoes inside.
If you do not want to store belts in a drawer, a belt hanger that can be hung in the wardrobe. Similarly, if you have no more room in your drawers or shelves (the next tip), put open-topped boxes at the bottom.
Organising your shelves
At some university accommodations, instead of a set of drawers students are given shelves or multiple boxes on the wall. Why not dedicate a box to an item of clothing, so one box will have just tops in and another bottoms. Just like I said on how to organise the clothes piles for drawers, put clothes you wear the least at the bottom so it will not get messy when you go to get dressed. Since the shelves are on show to anyone who enters the room, the clothes could be organised by colour. Starting with the monochrome colours and then, following the rainbow, sort through all the different colours.
Speaking of boxes, shoe storage boxes are a stylish way to have shoes on display but neatly put away.
Seasonal organisation
It would be a massive hassle to have a seasonal wardrobe for every season, especially being a student, so just do it for summer and spring, winter and autumn. Using storage space under your bed is a great way to keep all of this organised as most university accommodations have lift-up beds. If not, buy storage boxes that can fit underneath the desk. There is no intense organising for each box, just dedicate one to anything you wear above the waist and the other to everything you wear below it. Ladies, for dresses, leave them till last and place them in the box that has the most room.
Having a seasonal wardrobe means it is easier to plan a suitable outfit according to the weather, so you don’t end up throwing on a t-shirt when it is snowing outside. It also gives you the chance to wear clothes that do not get worn regularly.
Sorting through old clothes
Now this is all about asking the right questions, for example the first and most important one should be when was the last time it was worn? If it has been longer than a year, then look at the condition of it, is there anything broken like the zip or buttons? Say there is something wrong with it, is it fixable? Clearly, if it is broken then it needs to be tossed away, but even if it isn’t that does not mean you have to keep it. For clothes that you simply just do not want anymore, there are plenty of other ways to dispose of them, such as: clothing banks, charity shops, friends or family.