Organizing with Color

During our Summer trip to Utah, I came upon this place which of course I found irresistible. It was packed with just about everything imaginable; boots, books, pottery, rocks, record players, beads, and much, much (much!) more. Inside, I found that in spite of all the clutter, it was pretty easy to look around. Why? They had organized things by color!

There was a blue wall...

And there was a pink wall...

All of which got me thinking about organizing by color. I've also organized my books by color and found it easy to locate what I needed. As a visual person I think remembering the color of the cover is a lot easier than remembering the title or even the name of the author! I have one client, a book editor, who is horrified by this, but it works for me.

Most of us would be pretty challenged to arrange this perfect rainbow of books, but I think a large wall of books by color of this size would be fantastic even with a much closer palette. Notice how it really ends up functioning like a large painting in the space.

ORGANIZING-YOUR-CLOSET_GET-ORGANIZED_INTERIORS_CLOSET-DESIGN_BELLE-MAISON-BLOG-14

Arranging clothing by color is also extremely helpful to locating items quickly -- who's going to forget what color they're looking for!.

Finally, I discovered that I can do the same with my files - this is not only pretty, it really does help me find things faster.

Got any color-coded techniques that help? Let me know!