Interview - Modular Closets

As professional organizers we spend a lot of time in closets. One of the common questions we get asked is, do I need a closet remodel? We turned to Christina Giaquinto of Modular Closets to discuss the various options.

For the busy homeowner, what is Modular Closets?

Modular Closets is a semi-custom closet system adaptable to any space. There are a few basic modules, like hanging towers, shelf towers, shoe towers, etc. in several different widths. The product is made of furniture grade TFL melamine board and high quality hardware. We hold a US government patent and are manufactured in New Jersey.

What are some of the main differences between Modular Closets and other closet installation services?

There are quite a few!

1. We're the direct manufacturer so we cut out a lot of the middlemen, making our system relatively affordable compared to similar quality products.

2. We manufacture in the US, which allows for the fastest shipping in the industry (3-5 days). With most other options you're looking at many weeks or months for a closet delivery.

3. We designed our system for easy-peasy installation - no professional installation required. In fact, Apartment Therapy ranked us as the best DIY closet system!

4. We offer free design assistance.

5. It's easy to order the entire closet online without any human interaction.

Can you describe the process, once someone decides to use Modular Closets?

You simply measure the space of your closet, select the modules you want based on your needs with our online closet design tool or in the Closet Modules section and add your design to the checkout!

Are there any limits to the types of spaces that will work?

We've done thousands of different types of dimensions - from tiny closets to massive celebrity-style walk in closets. Our narrowest width is 19.5 inches so the only time you'll have an issue is if your space is narrower than that.

What are some of the most popular systems or designs?

The beauty of our system is that it's so customizable that almost every closet design is unique. Most people come to us for bedroom closets, but there are plenty of pantry closets, laundry room closets and mudroom closets as well. I suggest you check out our online customer photo gallery for inspiration on what can be done with our system. We already have a "predesigned closet" section on the website for reach-in closets and we're actually in the process of building a similar section for commonly sized walk-in closets.

Tips For Organizing Your Walk In Wardrobe

With people having unpredictable times in recent years, it is completely natural to feel a little unorganized. Well, this year is all about personal development and getting our lives back on track. If you are wondering where to start, then why not check your bedroom as this is the place where you come mostly to relax and sleep. Having a walk-in wardrobe is fantastic, but when you have so many clothes, shoes and accessories that clog it up, it can make it impossible to find anything that you actually want. In the article, we will go through some simple ways in which you can organize your walk-in wardrobe to start your year right.  

What You Need To Organize Your Wardrobe:

If you are going to organize your wardrobe, you are not going to be wanting to do it again anytime soon, so you will want to do it correctly the first time. Due to this, we will need the following bits of equipment so that you can measure the space to plan properly.

Here are some tools you will need:

1. Shopping Bag: This will be to transport your clothes to the designating place such as the bin, charity or to keep. If you don't have any bags, then a box or bin will also do well. 

2. Tape Measure: This will be so that you can measure the inside of your wardrobe so that you know where all of the organizers will go and where they will fit. 

3. Full-Length Mirror: This is so that you can try things on before you throw them away. It is a good idea for it to be full length so that you can see the whole of yourself.  

4. Catch-all Basket: This is for anything you find spare in your wardrobe. Whether this is a rubber band, tissues, cash, papers etc. This will help save time as you can put all this in the basket to file away later. 

Empty and Clean Your Wardrobe

If you are one that will just shove clothes in the wardrobe, this may become a bit of a shock for you. But the first thing you will need to do is remove everything from your walk-in wardrobe, including hangers, baskets and anything on the shelves and floors. 

The reason why you need a clean and clear space is so that you can visualize where everything is going to go when it is all organized. This may be a place for your knitwear, somewhere for your hats or just a color coded wardrobe for your favorite items. It is completely up to you. Ensure that your shelves are clean and dust-free as well as your hanging rail. Hoover and mop the floor to ensure there is no dust, this includes the baskets, boxes and whatever else that belongs in the wardrobe. 

Purchase Closet Organizers

These sound like a farce, but trust us when we say they are going to help make your wardrobe that extra bit organized and beautiful. Ensure you measure your wardrobes so you can plan where everything is going to go. 

The material of your closet organists will depend on what you are filling them with. You could buy simple wicker baskets for your denim and knitwear, go with more fancy glass containers for special vintage jewellery or have specific racks for your shoes. 

When you have closet organizers, everyday life will be much easier!

Declutter Your Clothes, Shoes and Accessories

This is the fun part, rather than deciding what you're going to throw away, decide what you are going to keep instead. Have separate piles for what you are going to keep, stuff you are going to sell (must be good quality), stuff you are going to donate to charity and then finally stuff you are going to throw away. A helpful tip on deciding where items will go is to answer whether you love it, wear it or does it portray the image you want of yourself? 

Organize Your Clothes, Shoes and Accessories

For this part, you have some free reins as you can now organize the room to how you think it should go. Utilize all the space so you can fit in as much as you can without it looking unorganized and cluttered. You will find that the organizers will help you to find places for a range of different items such as underwear, accessories and even your jewellery. 

There are many different ways in which you can organize your walk in wardrobe as it is all down to personal preference. As long as you follow these steps, you will find that your clothes will fit nicely into your wardrobe that you can feel proud to own. 

Simple Ways To Declutter Your Wardrobe

With Spring fast approaching, you might be thinking it's time to declutter your wardrobe! This is sometimes a time consuming task, but when you set a morning or afternoon aside to get it done, your day to day life will become much easier. These simple tips will cost you barely anything, if anything at all, but will save you so much time and space! So, let’s find out a few simple ways to declutter your wardrobe to help you get organized and stay organized. 

Take Everything Out! 

Although this might seem like a simple one, the best tip we can give you is to take everything out of your wardrobe! Before you try to sort through anything, take everything out of your wardrobe and drawers, as this will make it so easier for you to see everything you have and make decisions on what you will be keeping and not. 

Sort Into Piles

Now that you know everything is out of your wardrobe and drawers, you can sort it into piles. Go through all of your clothes and sort them into keep, sell and donate piles. When deciding what to keep, consider whether you wear it often, if someone else might get more wear out of it, how well it fits you and how it makes you feel. If you are unsure about whether to keep something, try it on and see how it feels this will help you make the decision! 

Next, create a sell/donate pile. If pieces are in good condition but they’re not quite right for you anymore, you could sell them online or donate them to a charity shop. Even if something isn’t in great condition, charity shops often sell the materials for textile purposes, so it is always worth handing it over! 

Vacuum Pack Off-Season Clothes

Take your donate/sell pile out of the way and now it is time to sort through the ones you are keeping! If you have all of your clothes for every season in your wardrobe and drawers, it is likely to be really cramped and hard to find anything. So, sort your pile into warmer and cooler clothes, then vacuum pack anything that you don’t need for the season you are in. You can store it in a cupboard or loft and you will find that you have so much more room in your wardrobe! At the end of each season, you can simply swap the clothes over. 

Have A Hanger For Each Piece of Clothing

Now that you have more space in your wardrobe because you have gotten rid of plenty of clothes and the rest are vacuum packed away, you should have enough room and hangers to have just one piece of clothing on each hanger. This will make it so much easier to see everything that you have and you are likely to rotate what you wear more! 

Get Drawers For The Bottom Of Your Wardrobe

Last but not least, you should get drawers for the bottom of your wardrobe. Often people don’t utilise the space in the bottom of their wardrobe properly and it can look cluttered and disorganised. So, when you add drawers, you will be making use of the space as well as helping to organise what you have in there. In the drawers, you could store things like underwear and accessories. You could also have a few baskets alongside the drawers for knitwear, tracksuits, jeans, shoes etc. This will look so much more organised and it will make your life way easier! 

Guest Post - How to Organize and Keep Track of Your Kids' Hand-Me-Downs

Sorting through piles of your children's clothes is quite a chore. Kids typically grow out of their clothes in months, leaving you with more stuff to organize and store as hand-me-downs for your younger kids. 

Admit it or not, you’ve tried in the past to avoid the chore, wishing the clothes would magically organize themselves. Well, we all know that’s not going to happen, and you’ll still need to start organizing at one point, so we made this simple to follow guide to make the task less dreadful for you: 

Why should you start organizing your kids' hand-me-downs?

Organizing your kid's hand-me-downs not only helps you get rid of unusable clothes, it also keeps money in your pocket as you get to save on buying new clothes for the younger siblings.  And if you're sentimental about clothes, you'll remember the moments tied up to them when you see your kids wear something their older siblings used to love. 

Even when you don't have many kids, you get the chance to donate grown-out clothes to a charity that needs them more. Also, the thought of having an untidy wardrobe has a way of affecting your productivity at work or parenting. Thus, it's worth the time to organize and store hand-me-downs once and for all.

It's a win-win situation here; you get to declutter, save clothes for your younger kids, give out clothes to others, and free your mind from the stress of having a messy closet.

The things to consider as hand-me-downs

• Pajamas

• School uniforms

• Sportswear

• Casual wear

• Formal wear

• Shoes

• Pants

Things to toss out

• Underwear

• Trendy clothing (they need to be handed over soon as the trend dies down)

• Socks

Materials needed

• Pens

• Labels

• Storage bins

• Closet for hand-me-downs

Steps in organizing and storing your kid's hand me downs

1. Categorize minimally.

Don't go overboard in organizing just yet—you'll be overwhelmed if you classify items by season, age, gender, and purpose. Not all children's wear is same-sized, gender-specific, and suitable for one season only. So the most straightforward approach to classify things is categorizing by:

• Newborn wear

• Toddler wear

• School uniforms

• Shoes

• Toss out/To donate

2. Fold clothes neatly.

Now that you have classified them into five categories, you can start folding them up neatly. This will minimize fabric wrinkles as you store them and help you save up space in storage.

A great folding approach is by enabling them to sit upright on storage. This means that you won't be stacking clothes, which is a recipe for disorganized and mess-prone storage. Having clothes upright and inserted from front to back allows you to see things quickly and avoid digging through piles that ruin tidiness.

3. Pile clothes according to similarity.

Before you store the clothes in their designated bins, you should strategically pile items of the same size, fabric, purpose, and gender. This way, the clothes are not randomly bunched together and placed in a bin.

For example, you should pile together all the girl's toddler clothes and keep a separate pile for the boys.

4. Get your bins and label accordingly.

Now get your bins and label them according to the five categories you identified. Labels will help you easily identify the containers and their contents. You can get creative by color coding and printing the labels. You'll use these labels in the bin itself and the dividers that you'll use to segment different types of clothing in each bin.

Some of the labels you need to prepare are the first five categories, the types of clothing identified based on age, season, and gender. You may even use your child's name to specify who will wear the clothes next as labels. The idea is you need labels for dividers that you'll insert in between the segregated hand-me-downs.

5. Put the clothes in bins and place the dividers.

Now that the clothes are categorized per category and subcategory, you may add them to the labeled bins. Clear plastic containers are preferable, but you may use any bin if you don't have clear ones. 

Insert the dividers to separate sections by age, gender, season, and purpose. Then, tidy up the clothes before you set them aside for storage.

6. Pick one centralized location for storing hand-me-downs.

Find a spot that can accommodate all hand-me-down bins. The centralization will prevent you from forgetting where you stored the containers. The best location can be the top shelf of your indoor wardrobe or under the bed—places that are easy to find yet are usually out of your way.

You may store them in the basement. However, beware of molds that may accumulate over time. The best spot must be dry, clean, well-ventilated, and dust-free.

7. Pick up your "to donate" stash and give them away.

Your "to donate" stash may also include clothes that you may give away to other kids you know. The idea is as soon as you acquire them, think of how you'll get rid of them. This is to lessen the load you have in your children's wardrobe. You won't have any use for them anyway.

Other reminders when organizing and storing your kids' hand-me-downs

• Toss out ripped, stained, or too worn-out clothes. 

• Donate right away the trendy clothes that will go out of style.

• Give away clothes that your kids won't use regardless of how expensive or cute they are.

• Use a timer to encourage speedy sorting.

• If there are any extras, you may scale them down and move them to your "to donate or give away" bin.

• If your kids don't want to get rid of their unusable clothes, you may consider sorting them out when they aren't around.

Conclusion

Going through your children's old clothes doesn't have to be overwhelming. While it may be time-consuming, you can have fun doing this as a form of stress-reliever or bonding time with your children. With the mentioned steps, you can surely find your way to seamless hand-me-down storage.

About the Author:

Hazel Santos is an experienced Content Writer for Skill Success who also has a knack for DIY home redesign and organization. When she isn't writing, she keeps herself busy by browsing through home organization blogs and redesigning her space at home.