I have recently come back to MSP and I got a decent closet purge going on my spring/summer clothes last time, but I am trying to get my fall/winter clothes organized and purged. I have a detailed list below of my storage space and how it is currently used, but I don't feel the system is working well for me. All suggestions appreciated! Sorry about the long post :( ETA: I just realized some might wonder about my color choices are. For summer my main neutrals are white & khaki with a generous sprinkling of jeans, jean shorts, and capris in other colors. In summer I tend to stick with more solid bottoms and use my shirts/blouses for color whereas in winter I have a few more pinstriped etc bottoms with solid tops. For winter I do more black and brown neutrals though I have some winter white corderoys. I am a summer: My accent colors tend to be pinks, blues, greens, purples from pales to jewel-tones. Issue #1 is that I am in the process of losing weight. I have clothing in size 6-10, and as I am attempting to lose 15-20lbs, I am not really ready to get rid of clothes I like in the smaller sizes though I have purged out the smaller clothes that I was 'meh' about. There aren't currently any clothes in the closet that don't currently fit me except for 2-3 items I am using as size-loss goal pieces (as in I check to see how close this skirt is coming to fitting me etc) For summer clothes, I just packed up the things I like that didn't fit this season, and if they still don't fit next spring, I will get rid of them. My first problem is that I have a TON of clothes that fit when the closet is cleared out, and because I have several straightforward sisters, I am not allowed to wear unflattering clothes for long lol My style is fairly classic, my oldest sister is the personal shopper and deal finder of the century, so the result is that I have a nice wardrobe (still working on a couple of the basic pieces) at a reasonable price, but it can be hard to organize/remember what you have. I spend my days in dress clothes, we have a cleaning business so I do some of that in the evenings requiring 'junk clothes' with bleach spots and such for that purpose, and I love, love, love pajamas and lingerie so I have quite a collection there. I wear up to 5 different sets of clothing in a day--dress up for day, dress down at home, church, cleaning, and then bed time (but generally is between 3-4). We also do semi dress up date nights regularly & my husband has similar clothing pattern to me--suits and sport-coats for day, church or dates in evening, plus junky work clothes; so the two of us go through TONS of clothes per week. And we need a good supply of every type of clothing. As I hate wearing clothes more often than every couple of weeks, I clearly do not currently have any type of minimalist attitude toward clothing. Currently I have a 7 drawer dresser with 3 extra deep drawers across the top and then two rows of two wider but not as deep drawers. The extra deeps hold a lot, but it is hard to get to anything not on the top. At the moment they contain: Top left deep drawer: panties Middle extra deep: Pajamas Right extra deep: bras and socks Wider drawers on left side: plain colored tees Wider drawers on right side: printed tees Wider drawer on left side: trendier tees worn less often Wider drawer on right side: work out clothes Then my closet: For good or bad I have a huge closet. There is a high, long rack with a shelf over it the width of the room. It contains special occasion dresses, regular dresses, button down shirts arranged by color light to dark, dressy cardigans/blazers/suit jackets, then the far right is a bit harder to access because I have one of those add on hanging racks next to it, so I have dressy types of hanging lingerie--long gowns, babydolls, & robes. Above this rack on the shelf above are beach bags and then 5 canvas cubes: one has bathing suits/coverups, one has pantyhose, one has overflow panties and bras including ones bought on sale to rotate in when need to throw away, one is scarves, and the last is speciality items --saris my in-laws bought me (they're from India) the opposite season curtains for the bedroom, etc Below this rack are my boots, and then where the shirts begin and you can access the area underneath better, I have 2 sets of Rubbermaid drawers (not in love with this setup but all I have at the moment). First set is narrow: top drawer has rattier underwear I have for during my cycle, middle drawer socks, and bottom drawer less used undergarments--spanx, strapless bras, etc The second set is wider and the top drawer has lingerie--cami/panties cotton sets mostly, below that are overflow babydolls & silky sets, and bottom drawers is work shirts (have ruined too many clothes I liked by cleaning in them to not have a separate drawer for these) Moving to the right, I have a canvas hanging organizer that holds thicker pajamas items. I like to wear flannel pants around the house between day and evening, so this holds those and matching shirts. Then my last rack is a low hanging rack about 1/2 the length of the side wall (maybe 6' or so?), where I have more casual cardigans/hoodies and then the rest of the space is skirts organized by color. In between this rack and my husbands rack next to it is about 3 feet of space. The left side holds skirts too long for the short rack below and the rest of the space is another canvas hanging organizer (top wasted as I can't reach) then sweatshirts (almost never wear), fleece outerwear, and turtlenecks (don't like turtlenecks on me but I keep a few in basic colors since I am often outside in dress clothes during the winter and I need the layer). Below this organizer and the long skirts is a laundry basket containing things that need mending. Above this are 4 wire shelves the same length as the rack. Bottom shelf is jeans/capris/shorts (because this all fits on one shelf and we like to travel to warm climates in winter, I don't generally move any of these out of the closet when I change seasons. Second shelf is a horrible horrible mess of tank tops, dressier summer tees, long sleeve casual and dressy fall shirts, and sweaters--COMPLETELY UNORGANIZED AT THE MOMENT. I stack these 4-5 high and sometimes they fall over on the piles next to them. The third shelf is currently wasted space because it is above my head and I don't really put anything there--I tried a step stool in that room and it just always seemed in the way. The top shelf runs the entire width of the room and holds our carry on sized suitcases. The rest of the room is my husband's. Except I have shoe racks for me on the back of both doors (on from bathroom and one from sitting room). I need somewhere to put a hook to organize my outfits for the next day the way that Leslie does (LOVE that idea), but I think it will have to go on the other side of one of the doors. Behind the door that leads to the bathroom (where I always enter from) I have a bakers rack with wire shelves where I am trying to organize purses and maybe extra shoes--not sure if this is a good idea or not. Ok, that is finally it. Suggestions? I think I need a better way to organize bras and panties....the deep drawers just seem to hide too much I also need a way to know what I have--everything seems to have a place and then also have an 'overflow' place, so that some things don't get moved into the rotation. I tend to shop off season, so by the time the season comes around I have often forgotten what I bought. Coats are in the guest bedroom though I will probably have to move a few of the most worn ones into the closet when it gets colder. Normally I steal some of my husband's button down shirt rack for that.

YIKES that post lost all my formatting! And it won't let me delete and repost as smaller individual posts. If someone can let me know what to do to fix that and make it so that someone might read it, please let me know. Also the nickname was a joke, I didn't expect it to be my forum nickname--I don't think I am 'great' I promise :embarrassed:

hi Aspen! Nice to *meet* you :) I had to lol about the long post - yes this forum magically removes all spaces, newlines etc. - I have not figured out a way around that yet.
Maybe if we try HTML tags it might work? Testing it out above.....

Yes it looks like that worked! So if you want to do a new line, you need to add a '<' 'BR' '>'. That way, if you want to add a space between two paragraphs you will need two of these 'BR' spaces.

like so....

I know you don't want to hear this but from reading your post, it really does sound like you just need to cut down on how many things you have! You don't have to do it all at once - maybe just use what you have/stuff you have bought off season and slow down on getting more? There are always going to be sales off season always new things to buy - maybe just skip a few seasons?

To organize what you have and catalog it - if you have a smartphone or smart device, I recently bought an app called stylebook. It lets you take pictures of your clothes and organize your virtual closet then put pieces together.

The one thing that struck me is that you mentioned that your t-shirts in drawers are hard to get to except for the top ones - what I do is roll them up and put then alongside each other instead of one on top of the other. Also you can get organizers pretty cheap at places like the container store that will let you store tshirts rolled up like this and then stack the boxes on each other for deeper drawers..... good luck!

Nice to meet you too! Thanks for the tip on HTML tags. I have never had to do that before. You may be right about editing my closet further, but I have already gotten rid of so much that I think that might send my body into some kind of shock. Plus I STILL get bored to death of my clothes fairly often. Maybe once I get everything where I can see it, I will have more options that I am currently forgetting about.

Hello Aspen I have very little closet / shelf space. I've been putting some of my extra "in-season" clothes into "out-of-season" storage each time around. Makes the day to day dealing with the closet easier. Then when the season changes, I end up with what seems like "new" clothes when the stored ones come back out. Or, it also makes it easier to say "nah!" and let go of those items. Less is more.