When you need a long-term closet organization solution, you may want to look into wire closet shelving. This used to be a pretty unpopular organization tool for closets, due to its industrial look, but its durability is helping it  gain popularity. Schaefer Shelving offers a wide range of shelving from steel to wire shelving.

Full-Width Shelving

You can use wire closet shelving for storage across the entire closet. These racks are built to the specified width of your closet. If you have a narrow closet (for instance, mine is the width of a standard doorway) your shelving may not need supports. If your closet is any wider than that, you’ll probably need a support built in at the halfway point of the shelving.

Some people install shelving in the entire closet, letting it take up all of the storage space. If you don’t hang up any of your clothes, this may be the most space-saving option, since you can fit many more clothes when you’re folding and stacking them. If you need some space to hang clothes, you can have a clothing bar for half of the height of the closet and wire shelving for the remaining space. Either way, you’ll need to buy shelves that are the right width for your closet and spend an afternoon drilling them in and installing them.

Half-Width Shelves

If you use your closet to hang up dresses or suits, like many people do, half the closet height may not be enough space for your clothes to hang up. In that case, you can use wire closet shelving on just the left or right side of your closet. When shelves are installed this way, they can’t brace themselves against both walls, so you’ll need to do a bit more work to anchor them to the middle of the wall. Then, you can use a regular clothing hanging bar for the other half of your closet. Depending on how far apart you space the shelves, you can get a good 6 shelves in most closets; this is plenty of space for storing pants, skirts, and shoes.

Removable Wire Closet Shelving

If you aren’t sure about wire closet shelving, you can use a removable option! An entire wire rack, self-contained with its own frame and shelves, can easily be put in your closet if you don’t have any hanging bars or other hardware installed. Before you buy a wire rack like this, make sure that it will fit in your closet by checking its width, height, and length. If you like the set up after a few weeks, you can then make the commitment to permanent wire shelving. If not? Take it out and try something new!

Short Removable Wire Shelving

An often-overlooked wire shelving option is a removable wire shoe rack. Unlike the options listed above, which usually take up the entire height of the closet, a small wire rack is often placed at the bottom of closets for holding shoes. You can take it out, put it by your door, or put it in storage if it no longer fits your storage scheme. Pretty ingenious!