Realistic Coat Closet Organization

Our coat closet had become a disaster zone. So I turned to Pinterest for inspiration to get me started. I noticed that most of the pictures up, especially the ones from magazine styled websites, weren't very realistic at all. The coat closet is a central location in the household used by all family members. Since when did all family members together have a total of 3-4 coats, which were all color coordinated? Don't get me wrong, the closets were gorgeous. Just not realistic. So I decided to see what I could do myself. The coat closet is directly next to my Apartment Entryway that I recently changed up.
 

 Here's the before...painful, I know:

The issues:

-Green plastic hangers (??)
-Too many clothes
-Door space not maximized
-Don't know what I will discover underneath the coats!!

I cleared out the entire space. Found an old bookshelf at the back of the closet, along with 2 air mattresses (why??) and other junk in the closet. I had bought some wooden hangers from IKEA because the plastic ones were all arching and deforming because of the heavy coats. I also already had this hanger on hand which I used for the scarves: 

This hanger allowed me to put up 10 scarves instead of 1!

Here are the steps I took:

1) Donated coats that I don't wear often. This allowed more breathing space in the closet.

2) Wooden hangers made a huge difference. They hold the coats' heaviness a lot better than plastic hangers, and look more uniform.

3) Ordered the coats according to length, and categorized them into mine, my husband's and my son's.

4) Used the spare bookshelf for extra shoes that didn't fit on the shoe shelf, and added a basket.

5) Organized scarves on pant hanger

6) Added some simple decor by writing out "His" and "Hers" on both sides.

Don't want to use wall decals? Draw your own designs on designed paper and use gel pen to make it look like decal.

 

This basket is from the Dollar Store and holds miscellaneous items

An old bookshelf with some extra shoes

This area definitely looks more organized than it used to! I didn't color coordinate this closet like my own one because I knew it would be difficult for other family members to keep up with it. Adding the "His" and "Hers" sign was a nice, simple touch that reminds us not to just dump our coats in anywhere but keep it either on the left or right hand side.

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