8 min readWhen my spouse and I moved into our two-bedroom apartment, one of the things we were most happy about was the amount of storage space in our rental. Each bedroom has a closet (which should be the norm, but New York City real estate loves to push boundaries), the kitchen has decent cabinet space, and there are not one but two storage closets in the hallway—truly unheard of.
The bedroom closets quickly filled up with clothes and luggage, the kitchen cabinets became a makeshift pantry, and the hall closets got all the overflow, with one hiding a litter box for our cats and the other being taken up halfway with our washing machine.
However, we weren’t as careful about keeping things nice and tidy in the hall closet that held the litter box (aka the “Cat Closet”), and what was once a small collection of clutter that we swore we’d organize one day quickly became a huge mess that filled me with anxiety every time I had to grab something from it. It was filled with random things like candles, cat supplies, and our extra towels, as well as a few boxes filled with medicine, extra wires that my spouse refuses to throw away, and a bunch of random crap. It overwhelmed me to even think about cleaning it out one day.
But I wasn’t about to let a closet get the better of me, so I reached out to Jenna Haefelin, founder of luxury home organizing brand SPIFF, to help me do something about this mess. Normally, Haefelin and her team of experts go to their clients’ houses to do the organizing for them. I, however, opted for a more DIY approach with her guiding my decisions.
My initial goal was to just decrease the visual clutter and maybe get matching baskets, nothing too crazy. With Haefelin’s tips and expertise, though, this simple space got a dramatic transformation that I’m honestly proud to show off (seriously—I sent all my friends and my whole family photos of the finished result).
Keep reading to find out all Haefelin’s expert tips—including the ones I didn’t adopt—that you can easily follow for taming your own messy storage closet.
Take the Proper Measurements
After I’d initially emailed Haefelin about the project and before our first call, she connected me with a member of her team, Jamie Field, to talk measurements. At SPIFF, they create a custom mood board with different basket options to choose from for each project. In order for Field to actually be able to start the mood board with baskets that would work for my space, she needed me to send her the exact measurements of the closet: shelf width and depth, the height between shelves, and the width of the door opening.
My closet’s door frame is a lot narrower than the actual closet width; the shelf width measures at about 36 inches whereas the door opening measures at 23 inches. This made finding baskets that would fit into my closet without leaving any space a bit tricky.
“We would normally recommend baskets that can be pulled straight out through the door opening without having to move any other baskets,” Field explained, but that would leave about six-and-a-half inches of empty space on both ends of each shelf, which is not an efficient use of space. The compromise here is my having to pull the middle basket out every time I needed a side basket—which I’m fine with.
Pick Out Storage Baskets
About a day after my correspondence with Field, she sent over the first mood board with the different basket options she found for the Cat Closet. Because my closet has nonstandard measurements, there weren’t a ton to choose from that would look good and not leave any negative space on the shelves.
“Obviously, we are design-forward, so we want to make sure it looks really good,” Haefelin told me over the phone after Field had sent the mood board. “We're not just going to stick a bunch of random stuff in there, but obviously we won't be there to do it exactly how we would do it for you. But I want to get it as close as possible.”
My only concern with what they had sent over was the price of the baskets. Depending on which ones I went with, I’d have to buy at least nine, maybe even 12, and the cost was quickly adding up. During that same phone call, I asked Haefelin if she or Field could send me some less expensive options, and she was extremely flexible, which I really appreciated.
Once Field sent the second mood board over, Haefelin recommended I mix it up a bit with the baskets, suggesting I choose a consistent rattan option for the majority, then a few of the wire ones to visually break up the wall of baskets. At first, I was going to choose a majority of the wire ones because my spouse and I are both “out of sight, out of mind” people, but Haefelin warned against it, telling me that wire is great for bulkier items, but you don’t want them for the smaller things since things can easily slip out of these types. It makes sense when you think about it, of course, but I obviously wasn’t, so it’s a great thing to be reminded of.
After choosing the baskets I wanted, Haefelin sent me the links and told me the specific sizes I needed. I ended up ordering six Ori Rattan Bins in size large from The Container Store and three Grid Baskets from NEAT Method in size medium.
Clean and Categorize
Once the baskets were ordered, I gave Haefelin more information about both storage closets in my apartment even though we were going to be focusing solely on the Cat Closet. She wanted to know what was generally in each one in case she felt a specific category of things would work better in the other one.
Her biggest concerns here were the pillows and blankets piled at the very top and the litter box on the floor. But I’m also well aware that this closet is veering close to pigsty territory—which is why I needed to do some decluttering ASAP.
If I were a typical client, Haefelin and her team would do the actual decluttering for me, but since my husband and I were doing it ourselves, she just reminded me what to look out for when throwing things away: anything expired, almost-empty boxes of things, anything that would make more sense in a different part of the home (looking at you, aloe vera gel).
We took out every single item and separated everything into different piles: one to keep, one to donate, one to throw out. With the final “keep” pile, we put everything back into the closet, keeping certain categories together, like cat supplies, candles, and miscellaneous house stuff.
Normally, I’m someone who just throws things out as I go, but doing this in stages and already knowing that everything remaining in the closet was things we wanted to keep made the actual organizational aspect later on go a lot more smoothly.
Don’t Be Afraid to Deviate From the Original Plan
Finally, the baskets arrived, and Haefelin and I scheduled a FaceTime call so she could guide me in real time while I organized the closet. I started by taking everything back out again and making sure the baskets fit three across, then we talked about where things should go.
As I mentioned above, you don’t want to store small things in wire or mesh baskets because the items can easily fall out of them, so we packed those first. I put my dish towels in one, larger medicinal items in another, and extra toiletries in the final grid basket from NEAT Method. We filled the rattan baskets with my spouse’s random wires, our bath towels, cat supplies, candles, medicine, and our miscellaneous house stuff.
The only thing we didn’t really touch was the pillows and blankets on the very top shelf. I always planned on them staying there because there really is no other place for them unless I start moving other things around in the rest of our apartment, and that was something I was not prepared to do. Haefelin had me try stuffing them into vacuum-sealed bags to at least make them smaller, but the ones I had weren’t strong enough.
Ideally, she would’ve had me deviate from my original plan, suggesting I move them to one of our bedroom closets, to the other storage closet, or even buy one big basket for the very top to store the pillows in. This way, the closet would look even cleaner and more elevated. And while I can totally see her vision and agree the closet could look more put-together with them gone or simply better contained, I really only wanted to focus on this closet and didn’t want to purchase another basket, so I chose to keep them there.
However, it’s a great reminder to have when you start cleaning out your own spaces: don’t be afraid to move things as you go and find a different place for them than you had initially thought. It’s easy to be so set on a specific idea that you forget there may be a better solution elsewhere.
Organize Your Baskets Accordingly
Just because everything is now in a basket doesn’t mean there isn’t more to be done. After filling every basket up, Haefelin had me go back and better organize everything. She sent me videos of how to properly place items, like the toiletries or medicine, in their correct basket.
“You want the neater things, the more structured things, whether it’s boxes or bottles or anything that looks cleaner, you’re going to put towards the front of the basket, having them all face the same direction,” she explained. “Sometimes, taller in the front is better. And then, all of the miscellaneous things, you’re going to store towards the back.”
She and her team always recommend their clients purchase matching pouches to store these smaller random items in so it all looks more uniform, but this was another thing that I personally chose not to do. As I said above, if something is out of sight, it’s out of mind, so I didn’t want to hide away more items that I would then forget about.
At this stage, she also showed me how to properly fold my towels to keep everything tight and more uniform. Basically, I folded each towel in half, then half again the long way, the side with the flaps facing me. Then, I take each end and fold it a quarter in until the halves fold in on each other, kind of like a hot dog bun. That way, they can stand upright in the basket, which you can see in the photos above.
It’s Harder Than It Looks
Finally, my storage closet was done thanks to Haefelin’s help. It looks amazing, and I no longer feel stressed every time I open the door, but I would be wrong not to say that this was so much harder than I anticipated. The FaceTime call with Haefelin that I expected to last an hour lasted two and a half hours, and I was sweating by the end of it.
Having to move everything out, really think about where it needs to go, and try different solutions and methods was draining. I totally understand why the SPIFF team typically goes to their clients’ houses to organize rather than do this DIY method. Either way, it was completely worth it, and it’s already changed how I organize and store other items in my apartment.
