Coming out of the closet

No, not that closet. This closet:

The closet off of our master bathroom is pretty decent sized. It's a walk-in at least, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Still, we've managed to fill it to capacity, and then some (Luke blames that all on me, of course). I thought I had taken more photos of the closet before we moved in, but I could only find the one above. It doesn't really show much, but hopefully you get the idea.

Basically, there were (and still are) open shelves on all three walls, with one rod against the back wall for hanging clothes. And you can't see it, but there's also a rod on each side way up near the top of the 10-foot ceiling. (Yes, we have one of those long sticks with a hook on it to reach those clothes. But you can still get a crick in your neck trying to get them down and hang them back up.)

Anyway, it seemed like a lot of space when it was totally empty. Over the past three years though, we've had to make a few additions to accommodate all of our stuff and utilize the space better. 

1)  We added another wooden rod below the existing shelves (on the left side) for more hanging clothes (all mine, of course).

2)  We bought two shoe racks from Walmart (I think they were $10 each) to utilize the space underneath the shelves on the other side of the closet (behind the door). This is great because we can see all our shoes; but on the downside, they can get dusty if they're not worn for awhile.

3)  We bought a little organizing rack from Home Depot (about $10) to hang on the wall beside the door. It fits just right and holds ties, belts, and necklaces that were previously scattered haphazardly around the closet.

Our shelves were also getting pretty scary as of late, especially on my side, so I cleaned them up a bit and put some old clothes that I never wear anymore in giveaway sacks. I also organized some other random items into shoeboxes to stack on the shelves. I felt much better about our closet after that, which was what led me to this [somewhat boring] post.

It hasn't been a total overhaul by any means, but these small changes have helped our closet from looking like a complete disaster. What are some of your best closet-organizing tips? If you have a closet makeover to share, leave the link in your comment!