You are done with school (finally) and the real world beckons. There are plenty of big-picture concerns, like finding or establishing a career. And there’s no shortage of grown-up matters that need your attention: utilities to set up, bills to organize and rent to pay. One headache you don’t need: a shortage of storage space. Luckily, there are solutions.

If you are just moving out of your parents’ home, or out of the dorm, chances are your first solo digs are fairly modest. That’s to be expected. But exacerbating the situation: most of your worldly possessions are what you wear on your back (or feet). In other words, you’ve spent most of your early life accumulating clothes, and precious little else. With a surplus of clothing (and little or no desire to purge) and very limited room, your primary objective is creating storage space and maximizing its efficiency.

At your parents’ home you never had to worry because of the spill-over effect: there were plenty of places in the home—other closets, the basement or the attic—to accommodate the overflow of your wardrobe. The seasonal clothing switch-out, for instance, was a piece of cake: you simply fetched the newly required clothes from storage, unloaded, filled up the empty container with outgoing clothes, and placed them back in storage. You likely have no such luxury of space now.

You may have already moved into your new place—drawn by location, reasonable rent, proximity to work, social or cultural hubs—and you’re dissatisfied with the lack of storage space. But if you are still apartment hunting, consider places that have extra storage, (such as walk-in closeting, additional or deep closets, basement lockers, etc).

If you’ve brought along all the stuff you had no room for on campus, you’re likely in need of the fastest, easiest way to personalize your closet. Here’s where Rubbermaid’s HomeFree series™ closet kits —the expandable wardrobe organizer kit for closets 3 to 6 feet or 4 to 8 in length—can help.

• It’s pretty certain that you haven’t got a set of tools at-hand for your new place. (Hint: you ultimately should.) But since there’s no cutting necessary for the HomeFree series™ Closet Kits, you’ve got a reprieve. So get your clothes sorted first, buy tools later.
  
• Whether you’re job hunting, working long hours, or, dare we say, socializing, you likely don’t have much time or inclination to source the additional hardware that’s usually required to assemble closet units. You’re in luck: all the mounting hardware for these Closet Kits is included for simple, easy installation.
  
• You may soon discover that your wardrobe is morphing into a slightly more sophisticated, grown-up collection: there’s less need for sports uniforms and more call for sport coats. HomeFree series' telescoping rods and expanding shelves make it quick and easy to reconfigure your closet system at any time, to go with your flow.
  
• It will help to organize your closet in the way that makes sense to you: by season, work/leisure or clothing. Everything must find a spot out of the way, and your most frequently used items—dressier attire for work, work-out gear for the gym—must be readily at-hand.

Years from now you’ll look back on with affection to your first apartment and the many items that comprise your daily life. A HomeFree series Closet Kit may well be one of those items, but chances are, you’ll still have it, reconfigured to suit yet another, more advanced stage in your life.