Winter Clothes Storage: 9 Tips to Keep Your Wardrobe Organized
- Decide what deserves winter clothes storage space.
- Pick the right winter clothes storage spots.
- Wash or dry clean your winter apparel.
- Repair and mend damaged clothing.
- Use plastic storage bins.
- Use garment bags, not dry cleaner bags.
- Keep the pests away.
- Think twice before vacuum sealing your winter clothes.
How to Organize Your Closet in 7 Steps
- Clear everything out of your closet.
- Sort your clothes into groups.
- Decide what clothes are ready for donation.
- Clean your closet.
- Evaluate your closet space.
- Put your clothes back in.
- Reevaluate regularly.
Once all your clothing is rounded up, start sorting.Put casual clothing in one area on the bed or floor by category (t-shirts, tanks, yoga wear, shorts, pajamas, etc.) and work or dressier clothing in another (skirts, dresses, dressy pants, button-downs, sweaters, jackets).
You want to store your winter clothing in a cool, dry, dark location. Keeping your clothing in a temperature controlled environment probably means keeping them in your house. Top shelves in the closet or under the bed are ideal out-of-the way options.
Here are some small space solutions to help you store those bulky sweaters and coats in your apartment!
- A coat hanger and storage bench are a MUST at the entryway.
- Vacuum packers help maximize space.
- Under the bed storage boxes from Ikea.
- Over-the-door shoe hanger.
- Install foldable shelves.
- What Do You Think?
The lack of air inside a vacuum bag can cause the fibres in your clothes to compress, ruining their shape and fit. Vacuum bags are fine for short-term storage, but should be avoided if you're going to store long term. Delicate or special items, such as wedding dresses should never be kept in vacuum-sealed bags.
Do not store your clothes in cardboard boxes. The boxes themselves attract pests who eat the cardboard, plus the acidity within the cardboard can discolor clothes. Instead of cardboard I suggest plastic bin boxes or containers, or breathable sturdy fabric containers (as long as they have a lid that closes tightly).
The best bet is to use lidded plastic containers. These are great for protecting against any vermin as well as protecting your clothes from moisture. If you want to take extra care, and we recommend you do, line the plastic storage boxes with old, clean cotton sheets first.
Use Plastic BinsMany people use cardboard boxes or plastic bags to store clothes, as these are more cost-effective options, but these methods leave your clothing vulnerable to damage. Plastic bags can trap moisture and will lead to mold and mildew.
An attic is hard to seal, due to ventilation issues. Therefore, specific fabrics are best left out of the attic, like leather and animal fur clothing. Remember, the key to correctly store clothes in your attic is wrapping every clothing item individually in plastic and protect it from moisture.
What to fold: Anything that can easily stretch out, such as sweaters, knits, T-shirts and sweats, should be folded rather than hung, because folding puts less stress on these materials. Sturdy items like denim, cords and khakis also do well folded.
If a clothing item doesn't fit (you can't get it on, zip it up, or button it), toss it in a pile or a box. If it's something you're attached to (like a gift or favorite t-shirt) but doesn't fit, put it in the box you're saving and then move on to the next items.
Sweaters. Even with slimline hangers, wool, cashmere, and angora will stretch when hung, so it's always best to fold your sweaters to keep their shape. That said, if you're tight on shelf space, fold your sweater in half once and lay it over the bar of a hanger.
While jeans don't necessarily need a place in your closet, you should definitely plan to hang all your other pants (like dressier slacks). "Dress and casual pants should always be hung," says Reynolds. "You can hang them the long way or fold over the hanger."
5 Steps to Organizing Your Closet
- Designate a staging area and empty your closet out. You can use your bed or a cleared-out corner of the room.
- Organize items into specific categories and take inventory.
- Eliminate items that don't belong in that particular closet.
- Remove unwanted items.
- Clean the closet itself.
There's no one right way to organize a closet. While some people arrange their clothes by style (such as casual, workout, office, or formal), others prefer to group items by type or even season. Still, other clothing aficionados opt to organize their walk-in closet so the same colors are stowed in one place.
The most popular order, that's easy to remember, is ROYGBIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Going from left to right, hang your clothes according to the order of colors you'd see in a rainbow.
Organizing your closet by color not only creates a look of organization in your closet but it can also help you to identify where you have items in the most color, the least color, and too much duplication. This is the benefit of grouping the items in your closet by color.
How to Organize Your Closet Like a Pro
- Empty the closet. Start with a clean slate by taking everything out of the closet.
- Categorize, then purge.
- Try the hanger experiment.
- Store the seasonals.
- Find a new home for items that don't belong.
- Match those hangers.
- Choose quality over quantity.
- Consider your closet configuration.
