De-Junk Challenge: How to Organize Your Closets in an Hour or Less

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Spring De-Junk Challenge and Giveaway. Organizing and cleaning your?home?is much more fun with a friend, so join us, and let's get de-junking! Everyone has lots of tips, tricks and tools for you.  I'm going to tell you how to organize your closets in an hour or less! (If you're looking for even more, check out my Declutter Challenge FREE Printable.)

When I decided to join Heidi and a bunch of other friends for the De-Junk Challenge, I knew the first place I wanted to start: my bedroom. 

My room is a constant disaster with books, toys, and laundry everywhere.  (I hate laundry, but try to remember that I should be grateful we can afford lots of clothing.) 

There are three closets in our bedroom, mine, Mr. Juggling Act's and the linen closet.  I'm going to tell you how to organize your closets in an hour or less.  Sounds impossible right?  I thought so too, but it turns out not to be that scary after all.

How to Organize your Closet for $3.25

This was without a doubt the most daunting task, so I decided to tackle it first.  My closet still harbored years of clothing that didn't fit - seriously, some of the hangers and clothing had a thick layer of dust on them!  There were shoes I hadn't worn, and all kinds of miscellaneous stuff.

De-Junk Confession: I'm not going to lie, it was pretty terrifying.

Ok, so the first step is the hardest.  I took everything out of the closet.  Clothes and shoes were everywhere. My 7-year-old son told me I'd better clean up before Daddy came home and saw the big mess.

7+ years of clothing to sort through is a daunting task, so I started with the easy stuff.  Everything I knew I wanted to keep immediately went back into the closet, and anything I knew I didn't want went into a giant pile to be given away.  That left the stuff I wasn't sure about.

I already had this ClosetMaid Stackable Shoe Organizer, so I employed my 4-year-old to put away my shoes correctly.  Labor cost: 25-cents.  Perhaps I shouldn't talk about child labor... ahem.

Next, I visited the Dollar Store and purchased (3) baskets for $1 each.  They hold scarves, purses and such. Material cost: $3.

• Total project cost: $3.25
• Total time spent: 1 hour
• Clutter Removed: 8 trash bags

Seriously, I cleaned that WHOLE closet in an hour.  And, I removed EIGHT bags of clothing.  A friend took a few things, and the rest went to Goodwill.

How to Organize your Linen Closet for $12:

The linen closet is one of those places in our house where we just shove things onto the shelf and quickly, hoping nothing will fall out before the door is shut. But since there is a laundry shoot in the bottom, we end up looking at the mess nearly every day.  We can never find the right size pillow case, let alone matching sheets half the time.

De-Junk Confession: Before I cleaned this closet, our bed had two different colored sheets on it because we didn't want to risk something falling out to look for a matching set!

Again, I took everything out to the dismay of my two children who sat on the bed watching me. "Why are you making a mess?" Olivia wanted to know.  It's hard to explain to a 4-year-old that sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.  It's an essential life lesson, so good thing I started now on something "easy" like the linen closet, right?

Anyhoo, what I found was that we had a top sheet with no bottom, and a boatload of pillowcases. We went to Walmart where I grabbed (6) 18" dish washing tubs for $2 a piece.  The sheet sets went into the buckets, the pillowcases got sorted by size, and the towels were rolled and stacked neatly.  (You'll see the bottom left bucket looks mis-matched, that's because of the mis-matched sheets that came off our bed!)

• Total project cost: $12.00
• Total time spent: 35 minutes
• Clutter Removed: 1 trash bag

It was SO awesome to surprise Mr. Juggling Act with a clean linen closet and watch his shocked reaction.  I don't even know if we've ever organized that closet, and we've lived here for more than 10 years!

How to Organize Your Necklaces

And here's a bonus DIY project for you -  how to organize your necklaces. Mine were always strewn across my dresser and Olivia is forever putting them on.  They were always tangled and getting broken.

A friend of mine cut a piece of scrap wood down to 18", stained it to match my bedroom furniture, and added c-hooks.  Now my necklaces are out of reach of little fingers!  Since we had everything already, this project was a freebie!

• Total project cost: FREE
• Total time spent: 20 minutes (not including dry time for the stain)

More Decluttering Tips

• Decluttering Tips for Kids from One Creative Mommy
• My Process for Purging the Junk from Christina, Plain and Simple
• Garage Sale?Tips and Tricks?from 4 You with Love
• A Busy Woman's Guide to the Best Cleaning Products from Occasionally Crafty
• Declutter Your Mind to Declutter Your Space from The Frugal Foodie Mama