Closet Organization Before & After

I recently hired a friend who is a professional organizer to come in and do a small walk-in closet organization. Here’s how it worked and what she did!

Not gonna lie, I am borderline embarrassed to show you guys the before pictures of my closet. It was baddddddd. I have needed, for a long time, to get a better closet organization system in place. However, this is not my area of expertise. I am a pretty organized person and I am a very clean person, but for some reason, my closet was always a pig stye and I could never keep it organized. I knew I needed a fresh set of eyes (someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING) to come in and fix this closet chaos situation.

My dear friend Essense now has her own professional organizing and closet organization business and so, my birthday present to myself in August was that I hired her to come in and organize my closet for me!

Here is the before closet situation… It was bad. 😐

BEFORE. What a mess.

And VOILA!! AFTER!!!!!

AFTERRRR

Scarves and belts now neatly hanging on the back of the door!

Now that we have a system in place, it is just SO MUCH EASIER for me to see everything and know what I have in my closet. I’m wearing more of what I own and reaching for items I haven’t worn in awhile.

A couple of the things Essense did that made such a huge difference:

• She changed out ALL of my hangers to match. I already have velvet hangers in my closet, but they were all different colors. It seems so minor, but having all the hangers be the same color really brought the whole thing together and makes it look so much cleaner.
• She hung up EVERYTHING on the velvet hangers. Before I had funky hangers or clip hangers for skirts and leggings, but she neatly folded them and hung them and I like it so much better!!
• She organized everything by color. I have tried to do this in the past unsuccessfully… and there’s just something about the way she did it that made it so much easier to see everything.
• She made better use of the floor space. I would have never thought to put sneakers on the floor… so before, all my sneakers took up shelving space. Again, it seems minor, but made such a big difference.
• She “displayed” my bags in a much more organized and thoughtful manner so I can now see them or reach for them better.
• She also organized my shoes by type / season so I can easily switch shelves when the seasons change. I love this because my sandals which I wear almost daily right now while it is hot are right where I can reach them. When fall / winter comes into full force, I can easily switch the sandal shelf with the bootie shelf.
• She also really neatly / creatively organized my swimsuits in a little bin and displayed my beach hats over them. I love this!
• Belts and scarves now neatly hang on the back of my door out of the way.
• We added a little accent rug in the middle which, again, seems minor, but really added a little pop of color and made my closet feel more fun and “homey”

The only thing left to do is I REALLY want to switch out the fluorescent light fixture. I have found a couple online, but my fear is that the light fixture won’t be an easy thing to switch out. My husband replaced our kitchen light fixture last year and it turned out to be a huge project because of some wiring issues in our house. We will get to it eventually, but it’s just not high on the priority list right now. (Have any of you ever switched out a fixture in a closet????)

Anyway! Hiring Essense was THE BEST DECISION EVER and now I want to hire her to come organize #alltheclosets. Well, really just my kid’s closets because they are also a disaster.

I love, love, love my refreshed and organized closet and I’m so grateful to Essense for having the skills to help me!

What about you? Have you ever hired a professional organizer? Have you done any organization projects yourself recently?