Small Walk In Closet Ideas – How to Organize in a Small Space

We’re over the hump in our organizational challenge! I’d love to hear about your wins over the last few weeks. Week four of the Clutter Free Challenge is all about closets, clothes, and linens. This actually has been the trickiest week of all for me because our home lacks any sort of significant closet/storage space. I say that because we do not have a hall closet, a linen closet, or even a coat closet. We do, however, have three bedrooms with walk-in closets that are unused because they lack any functionality. This week, I was happy to finally pull off some organization in our master closet.

Our master bedroom closet is a small walk in closet that is a really awkward size and shape. When we first moved in we had several wire shelves that were oddly placed and really didn’t serve our needs whatsoever.

Small Walk-in Closet Ideas – How to Organize

The first thing we did to be able to begin the organization process of our small walk-in closet was pull everything out and remove the awful wire shelving. Matt patched all the holes and then painted the closet white (the same white we’ve used all around the house – we’ve been systematically painting our random nooks and crannies white as we make them over).

We then began installing our new closet system from IKEA. For this closet, we decided on the IKEA ALGOT system. I love how slim all the pieces of this organizer can be. We considered a similar system to what we have in the girls’ closet but we have a very small and awkward-shaped space so having a larger closet system would take a significant amount of space away from the closet and we need every square inch.

Here are a few small walk-in closet ideas and tips for organizing in them.
Use all the vertical space you can. We have pretty tall ceilings in our closet and much of that wall space wasn’t being used in the previous closet design. We opted to place our clothing rods as high as comfortably possible so that we could fit the maximum amount of clothing.
Use baskets where possible. In the previous closet design, my handbags were stacked on the top of the wire shelves or on the floor hidden behind clothing. We added some ALGOT baskets for additional storage space for things like belts and accessories. I also placed baskets overhead for handbags and Matt’s military gear.
Use your wall space. We added a shoe rack to one of the walls that previously was unused. Having the shoes on a shoe rack instead of on the floor makes a huge impact in making the space feel more organized.

You can see how tiny the space is from this photo above but we literally use every inch of the space, easily keeping things organized.

With two rows of clothing rods, we have more hanging space for hanging clothing.

We also added shelving to keep folded clothing like jeans, shorts, and leggings. These are my most worn bottoms so having them visible and easily accessible is very helpful. We found that in this small space, hanging pants get lost in the cramped closet. Having them folded and stacked keeps them more organized.

My favorite feature of our small walk in closet is this little dressing area. I keep my jewelry here. You might remember this DIY jewelry organizer from years ago, I still used it daily.

I think closet organization can be really tricky but with some creativity in the closet design, you can definitely have a closet that works for you. You don’t need a massive walk-in to keep your clothing organized – a small closet with a great organized system can be equally useful! I’d love to hear your closet wins this week or what closet problems you are having that we can work through together! Let me know in the comments.

This post is a part of the Clutter Free Challenge series.

More organizing ideas below:

Things to Declutter in Your Living Room

How to Organize a Craft Cabinet

How to Keep Kids Clothes Organized

DIY Small Closet System

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