Styles: Wardrobe & Peace

"GIMME MY MARC JACOBS jacket, you jerk!" It was an early morning in January, and I wasn't fending off a fashion-mad mugger: I was fighting with my crammed-with-crap closet.

Jamming a hand onto a shelf above where the yellow silk bolero should've been, I dug for my new Old Navy jeans, instead knocking down a plastic bin. Purses I hadn't seen since the Clinton administration spilled onto the floor. It looked like another day when I'd go to work in an outfit based on what I could find, not what I'd wanted to wear.

Unable to locate fave sweaters, bombarded by falling accessories — my dealings with my closets can be described only as dysfunctional. And mine isn't the only sartorial disaster area: In 2006, Americans spent more than $2 billion trying to wrangle their wardrobes, according to the Association of Closet and Storage Professionals.

"It's challenging for people to have a space that they have to act as the architect of," says Alexandria's Margaret Lilly, who helps clients corral their wardrobes with her business Lilly's Closet (Lillysclosetonline.com). "People don't have enough room for clothes. They don't look at closets realistically when they shop for a home," says Angelo Surmelis, an L.A. interior designer and host of HGTV's "24 Hour Design."

Next time I buy a house, I'll aim for a palace with a movie star-size walk-in. But until then, the reality is I have two 4-foot-long closets packed with an admittedly huge amount of stuff. Boots litter the floors, stacks of biking shorts teeter in precarious stacks on high shelves, and blazers pack the hanging bar tighter than the floor of a sold-out 9:30 Club show. Before Mt. Wardrobe erupts again, I need help. So, I call the pros.

» Pictured right: Before.

"There's no way you could've staged this," says Lilly, assessing my closets a few days after the purse incident. She raises her eyebrows at blouses messily hanging on door hooks and runs her a hand along a section of printed skirts. She asks, "Really, Jennifer, do you wear these?" I glance at the look-at-my-butt numbers and agree it's time to send to those uglies to Goodwill.

Lilly and other organizing experts agree: Purging is vital before binging on a closet redo — or another Coach purse. "If you're thinking of getting rid of something, ask yourself, 'How does it make me feel?'" says L.A. stylist Barbra Horowitz, who advocates reworking old T-shirts and dresses by dyeing, cutting or shortening in her book "Closet Control" (Sterling, $23). "There's no wardrobe mistress in your house. Even if you spent a lot of money, you can say, 'I don't want this anymore.'"

There's also the old rule "if you haven't worn something in two years, get rid of it." But you can also make your own laws. Banish unloved items after six months, or keep a garment bag of pieces with sentimental value in an extra closet. Don't know what to pitch? "Bring a friend in, someone who will be frank, not someone who will sugarcoat about whether something looks good on you," says Lilly.

With a bagful of skirts gone — and one old cashmere sweater chicly shrunk and snipped into a cardi per Horowitz's advice — I set about taming my closets.

Sadly, to clean things up, I've got to make a mess, so every shoe, belt, pair of cords and frock comes out. The closets look nude and strangely forlorn with their scratched, pasty white walls, but I'm about to fix that. "Make your closets fun, maybe by painting them inside" says San Francisco designer Karen McAloon and host of HGTV's "Find Your Style." "It gives a little pop that makes it fun to open the door."

After a couple of coats of a pumpkin-y orange from Benjamin Moore, the two gaping rectangles do look more inviting. But I'm not ready to put things back in — I've got shopping to do while the paint dries. Lilly and Surmelis have ordered me to replace my mishmash of hangers with identical, skinny steel ones ($7 for 5 at Ikea). "They're narrow, so they'll give you more room," says Lilly.

Many of the wardrobe woeful rehab their closets with pricey Elfa shelving systems from the Container Store or custom-built-ins from places like California Closets, where the average client spends about $3,000 per project. Organizers and stylists like Lilly also do house calls and either install or recommend closet systems; their rates vary. Lilly, for example, charges $100 per hour. She thinks I can simply increase my space with double-hang rods ($20 each, the Container Store).

Armed with 200 new steel hangers, I put away dresses, pants, tops and skirts, sorting by color and style. I hadn't bought into uniform hangers being better, but once I see the mod beauties neatly lined up, I understand. "It's like merchandising a boutique," says Horowitz. Sure enough, my once messy closets now look a bit like Barneys Co-Op.

» Pictured left: After.

But stacks of sweaters and boxes of boots and shoes still need to go back in the closets. To make my shelves less rummage sale-like and to organize my stacks of clothes, all the pros have recommended clear, stackable drawers. The 12 khaki tweed-covered numbers I choose come in shirt, sweater and shoe varieties ($17-$30, the Container Store) with see-through, fold-down doors. They're expensive, but once I create a sort of cubby system and fill them with neatly folded sweaters, tees and sweatshirts, it's as if Real Simple has taken over the room.

I'd always struggled to get at workout clothes on the closet shelf, so Lilly recommends storing them in underbed boxes. This doesn't work; my sleigh bed doesn't have enough clearance, and the boxes won't slide under. "Measuring before you buy organizing pieces is absolutely important," says Nealey Levi of D.C.'s On Track organizing service (Liveontrack.com). But she also tells clients to think outside the armoire and "get furniture that's decorative but functional."

So, I take two leopard print fabric-covered boxes from West Elm ($24 each) and fill them with exercise shorts and tops, stashing them on my bedside table shelves. The effect? Boutique-hotel cool — and now I can quickly grab my togs before early-morning Spin class.

"Look around the house for space that you aren't using," says McAloon. "If you've got a china cabinet and no dishes, fill it with shoes. I have a client in Manhattan who doesn't cook who stores linens in her oven."

My husband already keeps his clothes in the guestroom closet, so I don't think he'd like my army of shoes and boots invading the kitchen cabinets. But there has to be a better way than the heaps of boxes formerly crowding the closet floor. "Hang your boots from boot trees," suggest Lilly.

I buy some; they're basically oversize shoe trees with hooks ($10, Container Store). I suspend six pairs of boots from another double rod in one closet. It looks as if people are hiding behind the clothes, but the trees work nicely. Flats and sneakers go in an over-the-door pocket organizer. "Boxes take up so much storage space," says Surmelis. My heels stay in boxes, but now there's room to stack them neatly on the floor.

Weeks later, I'm still marveling at how my closets look and function. Instead of chucking shoes on the floor or cramming jeans on the shelf, I'm keeping the chic little caves neat. The pricey storage boxes help me walk a neat line. OK, I've spent my spring clothing budget on organizing bling, but, for once, there's a place for everything, and everything is staying in its place. And my closets and I haven't argued in ages.

Photos courtesy Lawrence Luk; Jennifer Barger/Express