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Fitting all of the clothes we need into the closet of a camper or motorhome can be tricky. Here are some RV organization ideas for different styles of closets to help maximize interior storage space.
How I organize clothes and save closet space in my RV
First, I’ll start by showing you how I store my own clothes. I have a pretty good sized closet for an RV; it’s the type with sliding mirrored doors. But we live in our RV full time in a four-season climate, and I still have to have professional clothes as well as everyday clothes and athletic clothes, so I have quite a bit to store.
One way I save space in our closet is by using these cascading hangers for sweaters and blouses, which allows them to take up much less horizontal space. After I had already bought mine, I found a DIY way to make them.
I also invested in some non-slip hangers with wire hooks. They stay on the cascading hangers better, take up less space than fatter plastic hangers, and clothes are less likely to fall off them when you’re squishing them into a tight space (especially slinky shirts with a wider neck).
I have also found belt/tie racks really useful, not only for hanging belts, but also for hanging bags, cardigans, and all my tank tops and camisoles. I got these belt rack hangers at Walmart. You can get them on Amazon, too, but they cost more.
Another Walmart find was these multi-level clip hangers, which I use for skirts and shorts. They are on Amazon, too, for a fairly reasonable price.
Also at Walmart I picked up a few of these multi-pant hangers for slacks. Here’s this kind on Amazon.
I ordered this tie hanger for my husband online, but I’ll be honest – he normally just stuffs his ties onto his end of the closet shelf after he takes them off. 😂 (I posed these for the picture.)
These hangers would probably work well for lightweight scarves, too, if you’re a scarf-wearing sort of person. That reminds me….I also picked up an actual scarf hanger exactly like these at Dollar Tree recently. It was summer when I bought it, and instead of hanging it up I ended up putting it in the storage area under the bed where I forgot about it.
These aren’t in my closet, but they are an important part of my clothes organization strategy. In them I keep gloves, hats, yoga pants, swimsuits and my “unmentionables.” They are quite inexpensive on Amazon and come in a few different colors.
Last, since it’s related to clothing, I thought I would share a photo of my laundry hamper. I like it because it’s made from heavy-duty canvas, the metal frame is quite sturdy, and the bag can be removed from the frame and closed with a drawstring for carrying to a laundromat if needed. The hook it’s hanging from is screwed into the wall, put there by our RV’s previous owners. (I do have a plastic laundry hamper as well, visible in some of the photos above, but I use it for storage, not for laundry.)
Saving Space in Drawers
If your RV has drawers for clothing storage, one way to make better use of the space is to add dividers which allow the drawers to be filled to the top without becoming too messy.
You can do this by adding drawer dividers. Pictured below is a drawer I organized using bamboo drawer dividers, but you can buy plastic ones more inexpensively, or make your own out of wood or cardboard if you’re crafty.
If you buy them, be sure to measure your drawer before ordering; I made the mistake of assuming any adjustable drawer dividers would work and ended up having to return a set of dividers that were too long. You’ll also want to make sure they are tall enough to allow you to fill the drawer as full as you want; some are shorter to fit in kitchen drawers.
Another way to achieve the same thing is to put a container inside a drawer, as Australian RVers Allan and Emma suggest in their article about clothes storage ideas. Here’s a set of drawer organizer containers that have smaller sections to help you be super organized, but you could also just use a cardboard box.
Clothing storage and organization ideas from other RVers
In these pictures you can see how shoe organizers can be used to organize not only shoes but also clothes.
You can even purchase hanging organizers with drawers already built in.
Plastic drawers can be used to organize the floor space underneath hanging clothes.
One RV owner found that this cube organizer fit perfectly in her closet.
The wire drawers used in this RV closet were purchased at Ikea. Don’t live near an Ikea? The Home Depot carries something similar, but unfortunately they cost quite a bit more.
Shoe organizers can be cut to fit on the back of a closet door.
This RV’s owner found some wire shelves that were exactly the right dimensions to fit inside her deep, narrow closets.
Here is the same style of shelf used in another RV.
The owner of this RV installed wire closet shelves by hanging them with Command hooks. I would be a little worried about the sturdiness of the hooks, but these people haven’t had any problems. Still, if I tried this I might use extra heavy duty adhesive hooks like these.
This cute closet utilizes a shoe organizer and storage bins from TJ Maxx.
This RV owner found a way to work with the angled back wall of her closet by hanging a plastic tub using tension rods. She says it has stayed put so far. A shower caddy mounted on the closet door adds extra storage for smaller items.
Ideas for RVers whose closets aren’t big enough
No matter how organized you are, if your closets are too small, you may simply need to add more hanging clothes storage.
One way some RVers have done this is by turning their shower into a closet by hanging clothes from a shower rod spanning the top of the shower and using campground facilities for showering.
If you have enough floor space, an adjustable-height garment rack like the one below could be a good way to add additional clothing storage.
And if you are short on floor space but have plenty of wall space, this product called the Quik Closet can be mounted on any wall to create extra hanging storage for clothes. The neat thing about it is, it can be folded down out of the way when not in use. It can also be mounted on the exterior of an RV as a place to hang wet towels or bathing suits. (If you like the idea of the Quik Closet, you can get a discount on it by using coupon code RVINSPIRATION.)
What if you don’t have a closet in your RV?
Full-time RVer Carly didn’t have a closet in her camper, so she removed the bunks and turned the space into a DIY closet! You can read all about her DIY RV closet project here!
Have you ever thought about removing the mirrored doors and replacing them with a curtain or bifold door? I thought about putting an accordion door there but the weight is probably the same as the mirrored doors. Hollow bifold doors might weigh less than the mirrored doors. Sugesstions please.
I like having regular doors on my closet, but I have seen many people replace them and I myself changed the look of them. Here’s a blog post I wrote about the topic!