Closet Organization

So I challenged myself to 31 different outfits in the month of August.  This means no 3 articles of clothing (top, bottoms, shoes) together repeated for the entire month.

To begin this challenge I had to get my closet organized.  Here is the before:

HOT MESS!

And here is the after:

Here are the steps I took to get it organized to help me out with this challenge.

1. Do ALL of your laundry.  Part of the problem with having so many articles of clothing is that we rarely get all of our laundry done every single weekend.  We usually get 2-3 loads done and leave the rest "to do during the week."  That turns into next weekend and it is a never ending cycle.  Couple of weeks ago we actually did wash all of our dirty clothes and found out that we don't have enough hangers.  We went to Target, bought some and came home to finish hanging.
2. Separate your clothes to match one another.  I went through and grabbed everything on a pant hanger and put it to a corner.  I did the same for long sleeved shirts, cardigans, short sleeves and sleeveless.
3. Color coordinate your sections.  This step might not be necessary for you, but for me it is a must.  I arranged my sections in color order.  Now I don't follow the rainbow pattern, but whatever made sense in my mind.  Just as long as all of my blues are together and all of my grays are together.  Get it?
4. Put all of your odds and ends somewhere.  I cleaned out this tub that had been sitting in my closet full of socks since we moved and decided to put all of my bras in there.  Now they are neatly folded and organized and not laying all over the closet and in my pictures, like the before pics above.  Also, can we just talk about the fact that I don't keep my socks in my closet which goes to show you that I have never worn a single pair of those socks in over a year!
5. Arrange items by frequency of use.  I had a box of scarves sitting on the main shelf right when you face my part of the closet.  It is clearly not scarf season, so I folded them neatly and had Ryan put them up on the very top shelf.  When it is time for them again, I will bring them down to a more accessible spot.  I also pushed all of my sweaters and sweatshirts over to the corner of the main shelf so that they are "out of sight, out of mind."  Just like the scarves, I'm not using them right now, so they don't need to be out and about.
6. Rearrange shoes.  I have a bunch of shoes, some have their original boxes and most don't.  With the shoes that have boxes, I moved them from the floor up onto the shelf arranged by type - wedge, boot, flat.  The loose shoes I arranged nicely on the floor where the boxes used to be.  I also keep all of my flipflops and sandals in a bucket that sits on the floor so that they aren't spread out everywhere.

Overall, I am so happy with our closet re-organization.  It is really helping me keep up with my 31 different outfit challenge and just makes me feel as though I have one clean room in my house :)