Anyone can organize their closet by color–all it takes is a little know-how! In this blog post, I’ll show you how to do it like a pro, with tips and tricks that will make the process easy and fun.
Do you want to know the secret to being a total pro at closet organization? Thankfully, it doesn’t involve any rocket science, trust me. In fact, it’s a ton of fun and can bring a lot of benefits to your day-to-day life, and this amazing secret is simply organizing your closet by color!
I know this might seem daunting, but I’m sure you’ve already got some beautiful images in your head of what your closet will look like after it’s done. And I promise it’s totally worth it.
Related:
- Declutter Your Closet: 9 Questions To Ask Yourself When Getting Rid Of Clothes
- Decluttering Clothes With KonMari – How I Got Rid Of 50% Of My Closet
Why should I organize my closet by color?
Why should you go through all this extra effort to organize your closet by color? When I started figuring out ways to best organize my closet, I know I was wondering the same thing. But, the truth is, organizing your closet by color has a lot of benefits.
It Saves you Time
For one thing, it’s a lot faster and easier to find what you’re looking for when everything is sorted by color.
Looking for a certain black blouse? It’s easy when all of your black shirts are grouped together. Searching for your favorite navy tee? Look no further than the navy section of clothes.
Grouping clothing by color prevents the need to search through your entire wardrobe looking for that one item you need today.
It Cuts Down On Overwhelm
If you’re trying to find a red top that goes with those gorgeous red heels you’ve been dying to wear? Easy, you’ve just narrowed down all of your clothes to the red section without having to glaze over absolutely everything you own. Just choose from the tops you have, and you’re ready to go.
No more stress. No more panicking feelings from being overwhelmed with options.
It’s like scrolling through Netflix for 20 minutes because you can’t figure out what to watch. There’s too much choice, and you end up feeling exhausted just looking at it all.
It’s Visually Pleasing
Organizing your closet by color is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than a cluttered, mismatched mess, and there’s no doubt your closet will look like something out of a magazine!
Arranging your clothes in rainbow order is a common method, but you can totally place the colors in any order that makes sense to you. You may want to organize by season with spring greens at one end, then summer reds, oranges, and yellows in the middle, and finishing off grays and whites for winter. Or maybe all of your stripes and patterns go in one section with solid colors in another.
You have full reign to get creative, but whatever color order you choose, you still get to benefit by being able to choose the perfect outfit quickly and without getting stressed and overwhelmed because you’re overwhelmed by your closet.
It Cuts Down On Over-Buying
When you can easily see how much you own of a certain color or pattern, it will help you realize when you have enough and don’t need to buy more of the same.
For example, I’m always drawn to the color blue. But once I color-coded my closet, I could clearly see that I have a lot of blue items. In particular, I have three navy tees that are all very similar. That’s a shirt I’m tempted to buy often but by knowing I already own enough of that color, I can resist the urge to buy yet another of the same thing.
How to Color Code Your Closet
Let’s break this down into a step-by-step guide to make things easy.
1. Choose your color-coding Method.
Your first decision is what order you want to arrange your colors. This is the most important part, so take your time with it.
If you want to go for a rainbow color scheme, that’s fantastic! But if you want to do something different, as I mentioned before, that’s great too. There are no wrong answers here. Consider what colors of clothing you have in your wardrobe and determine what order seems most logical to you.
The most common way to organize your closet by color is to go in the order of the rainbow from left to right. Then you’ll be left with neutrals that can be placed on either end.
But rainbow order isn’t the only way! You could also go from darks to lights (what I do), separate pastels from vibrant colors, or solids from stripes, or floral/other patterns from solids. Or put all of the neutrals in one section and colors in the other. Or create a spring/summer section and a fall/winter section if that’s how your brain works. Another idea is to put your least-worn color in the back and place your most-worn/favorite colors within easy reach. It’s totally up to you!
You’ll also need to determine how to separate different types of clothing. For example, you likely already separate your tops from bottoms. But do you want to keep your long sleeves mixed together with short sleeves? Or split them up into two different color-coded sections?
In my closet, I keep all of my tops together and organize them from dark to light. I also have a lot of white shirts with stripes of various colors so I group all of those striped shirts together next to the whites.
The only exception in my closet is a few longer cardigan sweaters and jackets that I separated out and hung on the very left because it creates a dedicated outer layers section that’s not only seasonal but looks nice and neat.
It’s really up to you and what works best for your closet and your clothes. There is no right way to do this, so trust your instincts and decide on a color order that makes sense to you.
2. Get rid of anything that doesn’t fit your style.
Eeekk, I know you probably didn’t want to hear that. But the truth is, if you’re taking the time to organize your closet, then it’s also time to do a closet clean-out. Bust out the Kon Mari Method and get started! In fact, I have 9 questions you should ask yourself as you declutter your closet. Those questions helped me get rid of 50% of my closet a couple of years ago!!
You don’t have to go crazy filling garbage bags with purged clothing, but if it’s not serving a purpose in your closet anymore, then it might be time to say goodbye.
Once you clean out the excess clothing that doesn’t fit, has stains and tears, or just doesn’t vibe with your style any longer, you’ll be ready to streamline your closet and organize everything in color order.
3. Designate A Section For Each Clothing Group.
Decide how you will separate different types of clothing and where they will go in your closet (or dresser). Most people naturally separate tops from bottoms, but do you also want to further divide up those categories into short sleeves versus long sleeves and shorts versus pants? Or separate your dress pants from your denim? Or place sweaters in one section and the rest of your tops in another section?
This is really dependent on how you personally like to think about your clothing as well as the type of closet space you have to work with. Consider how your thought process goes when you’re putting together an outfit and try to create clothing groups to match that.
Then from there, decide where to place each group inside your closet and/or dresser drawers.
4. Sort Clothing BY Color.
This is the fun part! Now that you know how you want to organize your closet, it’s time to get started sorting through your wardrobe and grouping items into different colors.
For hanging clothes, I like to approach this by removing everything so I have an empty closet to work with. So I’ll pile all of my tops on our bed and start putting them back in the closet one by one and hanging them by color as I go.
If you’re going for a rainbow color scheme, start with red and work your way through the rainbow colors until you get to purple or violet. If you’re doing a seasonal thing, then start with whatever season you’re currently in and work from there. Or you could start by placing your favorite/most-worn color in the prime spot that’s easiest to grab and then place lesser-worn colors toward the back.
Keep hanging your clothing items in the closet one by one until everything is hung up again. Then take a step back and see if any items look out of place and move things around until your color-coordinated closet looks pleasing to the eye.
For folded clothes you store in dresser drawers, you can follow this same process by first removing everything and then sorting by color. I typically like to sort folded items into piles on our bed as I work, then put them back inside the drawers once I’m finished.
FAQ: Color Coding with Patterns
Patterns are a great way to add a pop of color and interest to an outfit, but when it comes to organizing them, yeah, it makes things a little bit more difficult.
The best way to deal with patterns is to group them together by color. So, if you have a green dress with a white floral pattern, hang it with your other green clothes. Or, if you have a black and white striped shirt, hang it with your other black and white clothes.
But you could also create a floral and striped section and then color code within these sections. It might not look as aesthetically pleasing (or maybe it will look absolutely incredible!), but as long as you organize your clothing in a way that’s logical to you, that’s all that really matters.
Organizing your closet by color is a great way to streamline your wardrobe and make getting dressed in the morning a breeze.
5. Step back and admire your work!
You did it! You organized your closet by color, and now it looks amazing. Good job!
Now, you’ll be able to quickly find what you need and won’t have to go digging through all of your clothes looking for a certain pink top that’s hiding between your red shirts. If all the pinks are grouped together, it’s super quick to locate them!
And for days when you have no idea what to wear, you can look at your closet and quickly narrow things down to a certain color and put together a great outfit.
Join the conversation! Drop your experience and tips in the comments below or head over to my Instagram page, where there’s a ton of other funky organizational stuff happening that you won’t want to miss.
Related:
- Declutter Your Closet: 9 Questions To Ask Yourself When Getting Rid Of Clothes
- Decluttering Clothes With KonMari – How I Got Rid Of 50% Of My Closet
Have a fantastic day!
