- What Is the Best Way to Clean Out Your Closet?
- Step-By-Step Closet Clean Out Guide
- How to Do a Seasonal Closet Clean Out
- How to Store Off-Season Clothes
- Your Closet Clean Out Just Got Easier with CubeSmart
An overstuffed or disorganized closet makes it hard to find what you need, leaves little room for the things you actually wear, and turns getting dressed into a daily frustration. But with the right approach, you can turn that overstuffed space into something orderly and easy to maintain.
When you clean it out the right way, a neat, organized closet is easier to maintain than you might think. In this guide, we’ll share how to declutter your closet step by step—without the overwhelm—and show you how to handle those off-season clothes and accessories taking up valuable space.
What Is the Best Way to Clean Out Your Closet?
The best way to clean out a closet is to start with a thorough declutter.
Gather and lay out all your clothes to determine what to keep and what to part with. From there, sort the items you still want based on their corresponding season, so you can keep the current season’s wardrobe within easy reach and stow the rest until you need it.
Then, create an organized system to arrange everything else (by type, size, color, etc.). The result is a clean, orderly, and functional closet.
Sound appealing? The following closet clean-out guide will help you make this goal a reality.
Step-By-Step Closet Clean Out Guide
Whether your closet just needs a seasonal refresh or it’s been a clutter magnet for years, here are eight practical, easy-to-follow steps for cleaning it out.
1. Make Space to Lay Out All Your Clothes
Before you start taking clothes out of your closet, designate a space on the floor, your bed, or another large surface where you can place everything. Clear any clutter to ensure you have room to lay out all your items and sort them into groups.
2. Pull Everything Out and Organize by Type
Remove all items from your closet and place them on the surface you just cleared. Next, sort everything into piles based on clothing or accessory type—for example, shirts in one pile and bottoms in another. This makes it easier to see how many similar items you own.
3. Go Through Each Pile, One Item at a Time
Carefully sort through each pile to identify which items you want to keep and which you can donate or toss altogether. There are several ways to tackle this step, but we find the three methods below to be the simplest and most effective:
The Rule of Three
What is the rule of three for cleaning closets? This is one of the quickest ways to determine if an item is worth keeping. Evaluate each article of clothing and see if you can come up with three different occasions to wear it, or three distinct outfits to create with it. If you can’t think of at least three scenarios, place them in the toss or donate pile.
The 90-Day Challenge
Consider the last time you wore a particular clothing item. If you can’t remember putting it on at least once within the past ninety or so days (about three months), chances are, this item has overstayed its welcome—or it’s a seasonal item that’s better off stored away until the weather changes.
The KonMari Method
Invented by professional organizer Marie Kondo, this unconventional but intuitive closet clean-out method taps into your emotional response to each item. As you consider keeping or tossing an article of clothing, ask yourself one straightforward question: “Does this spark joy?” If the answer is “Yes,” it’s a keeper. If the answer is “No,” it’s time to part ways.
1. Sort Your “Keep” Clothes by Season
Once you’ve set aside the clothes you want to keep, organize them based on the season. Create a “fall and winter” pile for your warm clothes and outerwear, as well as a “spring and summer” pile for your lighter clothes and swimsuits. You can also do this with seasonal shoes and accessories like hats, scarves, and purses.
2. Clean All Surfaces Inside the Closet
While the closet is still empty, take a few minutes to clean the surfaces, nooks, and crannies that’ll be harder to reach once your clothes are back inside. Remove any clutter, then wipe off the shelves, walls, and baseboards to eliminate dust or mothballs. Finally, vacuum the closet floor and use an air freshener to help neutralize musty odors.
3. Hang In-Season Clothes Inside the Closet
Return the in-season clothes you’re keeping to the closet, arranged in an accessible, logical format. You can organize items based on the color scheme, clothing type, or size and length (for instance, short- to long-sleeve). This not only makes the closet more cohesive, but it also makes it easier to find what you’re looking for.
4. Find a Place to Store Your Off-Season Clothes
Store the off-season clothes you’re keeping somewhere that won’t take up closet space, but are still easy to reach when the time comes to switch out your wardrobe. (See below for more tips on how to store off-season clothes.)
5. Create an Organizational System to Maintain Order
Finally, establish—and stick with—a closet organization system to prevent clutter from building up in the future. Here are a few simple ideas to maximize space and keep your closet as neat as possible:
Reverse Hanger Trick
Turn all the hangers backward in your closet, so the hook faces the opposite way from normal. Then, after you wear a clothing item, flip its hanger back to the usual position. After six months, check which hangers are still backward. This will help you distinguish between clothes you wear versus clothes that take up closet space—donate or toss the latter.
Trash and Giveaway Bins
Store two plastic bins in the back of your closet—one for clothes to toss and another for clothes to donate. Then, as you come across a garment you don’t want to keep, just transfer it to one of these bins.
Empty each bin and make a trip to the donation site about once a month (or when they’re full). This hack allows you to make real-time decisions about which clothes to part with instead of letting them sit in your closet gathering dust (and taking up valuable space).
Accessory Storage
Small items like shoes, hats, belts, jewelry, and other accessories are notorious for cluttering up the floor and shelves of a closet. Fortunately, there are space-saving workarounds such as:
- Hanging a shoe rack on the closet door.
- Mounting pegboards, hooks, or even magnetic strips to the wall.
- Using stackable storage bins to optimize shelf space.
How to Do a Seasonal Closet Clean Out Hacks
Cleaning out your closet in the fall or spring? It’s the ideal time to separate your cold-weather and warm-weather clothing. These tips for cleaning out your closet will make it easier to decide what to hang up versus what to store away during a seasonal closet clean-out.
Fall Closet Clean Out Tips
- Set aside your spring and summer clothes for storage.
- Sort your fall and winter clothes into two piles: the ones you still wear and the ones you no longer want, such as items you’ve either outgrown or no longer use.
- Designate room in your closet for bulkier cold-weather garments and accessories such as boots, jackets, beanies, scarves, thick pants, and wool sweaters.
Spring Closet Clean Out Tips
- Set aside your fall and winter clothes for storage. (These items take up a lot of space, so donate or toss what you can to condense storage volume.)
- Sort your spring and summer clothes into two piles: the ones you still wear and the ones you no longer want.
- Organize your closet so that your in-season clothes and accessories (swimsuits, shorts, tank tops, straw hats, sandals, sundresses, etc.) are within easy reach.
Looking for more closet organization tips? Check out our guide on how to store summer clothes.
How to Store Off-Season Clothes
With your closet organized, the next step is figuring out what to do with all those off-season clothes stacked on the bed or strewn across the floor.
Here are a few smart ways to store them until next season:
- Place your off-season clothes in vacuum-sealed bags, so they won’t require as much space. Store those bags in an accessible but unobtrusive spot, such as under your bed, in the attic or basement, or spare closet in another room.
- If you don’t have unused space in your home to store these articles, rent a small off-site storage locker to keep your items safe and your home uncluttered.
- If you have other items to store, such as holiday decorations or outdoor recreational gear, consider renting a storage unit and dedicate part of that space to your off-season closet items.
Your Closet Clean Out Just Got Easier with CubeSmart
Now that your closet is in pristine condition, keep it that way with the help of a climate-controlled storage unit from CubeSmart. Whether you want a little storage or a lot, we have a wide range of options to suit every need. Consult our storage unit size guide to learn about the solutions we offer, or find a CubeSmart storage facility near you.
