The Closet Swap I'd Do Right Now, Before the Weather Turns

It's September, and the kids are back in school.

We had such a good summer, and our team spent it in homes all over Fargo and Bismarck. Somewhere in the middle of all of it the mornings turned cool, and now I'm standing in front of my closet, reaching past a whole rack of things I am not going to wear again until May.

So this is the week I start thinking about closets.

Here's the thing I want to say before any of the advice. If you got dressed this morning out of the same three feet of your closet that you've been using since May, you're not behind on anything. That's what everyone does.

A closet doesn't get crowded because you failed at it. It gets crowded because two seasons are living in there at the same time, and nobody has ever told one of them it can go.

So let's move one of them out. This is an hour, not a weekend.

Start with what you never reached for

Stand in front of the rod and look for the things you didn't wear once all summer.

Not the ones you might wear. The ones you walked past every single morning since Memorial Day and reached around.

That's your honest pile, and it's usually bigger than people expect. Some of it goes back on the rod because you love it and you just didn't get to it. Some of it has been waiting three summers for you to wear it.

I'm not going to tell you to get rid of anything. I'm telling you to look at it, because you can't make a real decision about a shirt you've been visually skipping for four months.

Give the off-season a container with its name on it

This is the part that decides whether the reset holds until spring.

Shorts, tanks, the swim stuff, the two pairs of sandals you actually wore. All of that comes off the rod and goes into one bin, and the bin gets a label that says what's in it.

In a Fargo closet we finished this spring, every folded thing already has one. The shelf edges read SHORTS, then SHORTS again, then JOGGERS, then SOCKS. Which means nothing has to be invented right now, in the first week of September, when the weather turns. The shorts don't need a new home. They just stop being the bin anybody reaches for.

A labeled bin takes eight seconds to put away and eight seconds to find again in May. A pile shoved onto a shelf takes a whole afternoon next year, plus the part where you buy shorts you already own.

The same pass works in your kids' closets, and a couple of weeks into the school year is honestly the better time for it. You've watched what they actually reach for on a school morning, which you couldn't have guessed in August. Whatever that is goes at hand height. The summer stuff goes in the bin.

Hang like with like, then let color do the last ten percent

Now put back only what you're wearing in the next few months.

Group by type first. All the short sleeves together, then long sleeves, then sweatshirts, then whatever's left over that only you would think to put next to it. Sort by color inside each group, not across the whole rod, because color-first looks beautiful in a photo and falls apart the first time you do laundry.

Two other things worth doing while you're in there. Look at how much empty air is sitting under your shirts, because that's usually where the space is hiding — the Fargo closet in the photo above came with a second rod under the first one, and that's the only reason two people's clothes fit in it without it feeling packed. And boots go up on the top shelf until you actually need them, with shoes down low where your hands and eyes already are.

Function first. Then organized. Then beautiful. In that order, always.

One hour, one rod

You don't have to do all of this on Saturday.

Do the honest pass. Fill one bin. Label it. If that's all that happens this week, your closet is already lighter than it was, and the next cool morning will feel a little easier.

And around here we get maybe six good weeks before the boots come down off that shelf for real. Getting the swap done now means you're adding to something that already works instead of digging through July in a parka.

If your closet has been on your list for a while, we'd love to help. Our team builds closet systems for families across Fargo, West Fargo, Bismarck, and Mandan, and we'll set them up so they still make sense in February. You can see more of what we do on our services page, or book a free consult whenever you're ready.

Cheers,

Lexi