Rainy weekend Wardrobe Organisation

A few weeks ago during a rainy weekend I decided I needed to sort out my wardrobe.
Every day I struggled to choose what to wear...

Now, my wardrobe is only about 1,30 wide!! Yes, just that narrow, and I have quite an extensive wardrobe too. Although I don't buy many clothes, I still have clothes from many years ago and I feel very attached to my things when I like them.

I also have lots of bags and they were hanging from a "coat rack" on the door and others in a box on the top shelf of the wardrobe, and every time I wanted to change my bag it was difficult to get to them so high up. Apart from holding the bags the high shelf at the top was useless.
My winter tops were in the small plastic drawers. Luckily there's no need for bulky winter coats, although I brought a few from Portugal with me and I keep them in the spare room wardrobe, which happens to be bigger than the one in our main bedroom...


                      BEFORE

The wardrobe was messy, handbags were to high to be reached... Here I had already removed a few clothes

 After removing the clothes, I removed the rail, then attacked the shelf with a hammer, removed it and painted the interior with the same colour as the rest of the bedroom. I also removed the rails attached to the door from where I hung bags and belts and painted the interior of the door.

Painted and almost ready for the makeover

 After that it was time to put in a new and slightly wider rail (the other had been attached to the shelf) attached to the side walls, right at the top of the wardrobe.
Then I bought a small cheap 5 shelf unit and put it in the middle leaving a gap either side.
I bought 3 boxes and put scarves in the top one, winter wraps in the middle one and stockings and in the bottom one.
On the left shelves I put my turtleneck pullovers, and a couple of bags that I still need to hang up.

The clothes were all sorted by colour - from white to black - first all the shirts/tops, then a few hangers with my skirts, then a few hangers with trousers, and to the left are the longer dresses that fall in the gap left by the little shelf unit.

                      AFTER

I bought a few transparent hooks that could hold up to 1kg and stuck them to the door and let them sit for 1 hour according to their instructions, before I hung my favourite bags on them. 

I also bought a battery operated light that is set to switch on sensing movement, so that if I have to get dressed in the dark I can actually see my clothes.

On the side of the shelving unit I drilled some holes and screwed metal hooks and I have hung the small purses. You can see that on the right in the above photo.

My favourite bags hanging on the door of the wardrobe - do you like my two cork bags (middle left)?

The transparent hooks used to hang the bags

The battery operated light with motion sensor

I feel so much better for getting this sorted, managed to get rid of 4 or 5 items of clothing that I never wear, and now every time I wash and iron an item I put it in the same colour order as before.

I also sorted through our chest of drawers, and folded my t-shirts instead of having them on top of each other which makes them more difficult to access. 
I used cardboard for the dividers, but I've now bought some white mdf board and I'm just waiting for my husband to cut it to size. (I'm not afraid of tools and power tools and can use most of them, but the electric saw is just too scary for me).

T-shirts sorted in the chest of drawers

Update - About a week later a couple of the transparent hooks started falling off, one of them falling in middle of night scaring the hell out of me when the bag hit the floor!
I have now glued those to the wardrobe with "Liquid nails". Not sure if it was because the door was freshly painted, or maybe I should have cleaned the area with alcohol?

Anyway, it's an improvement of the former wardrobe! What do you think?

If ever we buy another house it will only be on the condition I can have a walk-in wardrobe, and I'll be in Heaven!!  :) :) :)