Two People, One Tiny Closet – A Small Space Storage Agony with 5 Problems & 5 Clever Solutions

It is chaotic evil that two wardrobe/fashion-loving people have such alarmingly limited closet space. Of course, like most things in life it is not the end of the world nor is it a deal breaker, but it is difficult to manage. To top it off, I am a disorganized person by nature and am quite positive this won’t change over night (but if you have any tips or magic spells, let me know). But regardless of lack of natural ability, even the most disorganized among us love to bear witness to a closet with every article of clothing neatly sorted and tucked into its place. Closet organization is unbelievably satisfying and we all crave it.

Unfortunately, my lack of organizational instinct goes hand in hand with my design agony. Here’s the scoop: My boyfriend Rocky and I moved into a new place last August and we were smitten. Now some 5 months later, we still love our tiny little home as much as we did when we first saw it, besides one design flaw: there is only a single (5’x3’x8′) closet in the entire place. To be fair, the place itself is small (800 sqft) so there really isn’t room for another closet, but boy are we feeling spatially challenged. I probably don’t have to tell you it causes unnecessary tension but most importantly it causes clutter and mess by an already cluttered and messy girl. Guys, the fun is just getting started. 

You may be wondering who the heck I am, and who this Rocky fella is and I hear ya. Let’s get properly aquatinted. Here’s us:

Now, before we continue (and now that you can put faces to your design agony victims), it’s only right to give you a peek into our closet (did we just become best friends???). Feast your eyes on the “before” and please forgive me for not having a satisfying “after” to show you… yet: 

It’s your standard (STUFFED) single door closet, so there are things in there that we haven’t seen in months. Part of the problem should be alleviated once a larger dresser is purchased because hanging clothes up is unfathomable to me after a long day (again, disorganized person here), but I think we require a little more help than that. So now that you’ve seen the beast let me explain our biggest problems and pose some professional EHD approved solutions.

Problem #1: Ineffective use of space – aka WASTED SPACE

There are no built-in shelves or hooks, and the top shelf is super high up so it’s hard to stack clothes up there without them falling. Plus, it’s incredibly hard to reach anything when clothes are exploding out. Aside from hanging our clothes (and the fact is we simply don’t have the space hang everything) this closet has no intuitive or easy storage options.

The Solution: Invest in products that will maximize space.

1. MALM 3-Drawer Dresser | 2. SKUBB Shoe Box | 3. Two Shelf Horizontal Cube | 4. 8 Bin Shoe Organizer | 5. Over the Door 26 Shelf Shoe Organizer | 6. 10-Compartment Hanging Shoe Organizer | 7. Drop Front Box | 8. 10 Pack Hooks | 9. 5 Tiered Pants Hanger

We want to add in a small dresser like #1 to store socks, underwear, swimwear, and possibly other foldable clothes (like t-shirts). You may have noticed a lot of these are shoe storage options but I think they can be used for other purposes too. Like #2 can easily store clothes or shoes, and same with #4.

We are not done. Not even close, my friends. Now I am going to invite you to my very unfinished home. Here goes nothing.

By the way. showing thousands of people a photo of my unfinished bedroom feels like I am baring my nude self for the world to see. There is something so intimate about it so know that if you feel uncomfortable looking it at, I feel 10000x more uncomfortable thinking about you looking at it. But here we are! Now onto our next problem…

Problem #2: Bulky clothes hogging all the space

I’m talking to you, sweatshirts and sweaters. Have you noticed how men tend to own a lot of sweatshirts? It’s because they are lucky and can wear sweatshirts and look very cute in them all the time. The thing is, I too, have a fair amount of sweatshirts and sweats (a lot of them from sports I played in high school) and these things are BULKY and hard to store. And before you ask, yes we do donate clothes but we also know that donated clothes often end up in landfills. So we’ve decided to stop donating so much and instead sell them or gift them directly to people we know. We are also trying to simply buy less