Spring has {finally!} sprung, which means that many of us have set out on a spring cleaning/decluttering rampage throughout our home. Each spring, I begin with the most frequently used room in our home – the dual purpose laundry room/mud room. We are fortunate to have a large coat closet in this room, which we use not only for coat storage, but also to store shoes, winter accessories, and several miscellaneous items.
Since this closet sees a lot of action, it requires a high degree of weekly maintenance and a semi-annual seasonal clean-out to keep it functioning well for our family. In this post, I’ll be sharing how I prepped the closet for the spring/summer seasons, as well as a few minor tweaks I made to improve functionality in this space.
My first order of business was to launder every single winter accessory and store them away in this plastic drawer unit that lives at the bottom of the closet. I added labels to indicate which draw is designated for gloves, hats, and scarves.
Second order of business…going through the coats to weed out the heavy winter coats, any coats that the kids have outgrown, or any that are no longer worn. Outgrown/unused coats will go to a local consignment store or donation center. Winter coats will be stored elsewhere for the next 6 months (more on that later in the post). While going through the coats, I also removed any wire/plastic hangers that somehow weaseled there way into the closet over the past few months and replaced them with wooden hangers. Although I am a huge fan of huggable hangers in clothing closets, I prefer wood hangers for the coat closet, since they are much less apt to break under the weight of a heavy coat.
I purchased a few water hyacinth bins from The Container Store to organize the insulated lunch bags/coolers that are stored on the upper shelf of the closet, as well as our vast collection of rain ponchos. I am a huge fan of these bins, as anyone who has taken a tour of my home can confirm. They are sturdy, inexpensive, and so pretty!
“An entire bin devoted to rain ponchos?” you ask. We use these all spring and summer for sporting events, camping trips, and amusement park outings. So yes, an entire bin for rain ponchos.
Voila! The hardest working closet in the house is now fully functioning for the spring/summer season. Bring. It. On.
There’s still the matter of where to store those pesky out-of-season coats. This is a yearly conundrum that I haven’t yet solved. I’ve tried to store them under the bed, but the low profile of the bed frame makes it nearly impossible to slide them under. But..wait! Perhaps there’s an organizing product out there that can solve this problem…
Why yes there is. Have you heard of Ziploc Space Bags? These wondrous inventions enable you to triple or quadruple your storage capacity by vacuum-sealing your items into an airtight bag. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. I used the XL Flat Bag to reduce my pile of winter coats from this:
down to this:
The true test was whether the flattened bag could actually clear the 4″ space between the bed frame and the floor:
Yes! Storage conundrum solved!
After that victory, I became ambitious and experimented with the L and XL Cube-sized Space Bags in an attempt to recoup some storage space in our hall linen closet (which has become overrun with decorative pillows and down comforters).
Wait for it…
O.K., so the vacuum-sealed package isn’t exactly pretty, but it takes up significantly less space! In fact, by using 3 of these bags I gained almost an entire shelf of space in the linen closet! I’m officially a fan of the Ziploc Space Bag.
I hope that this post inspires you to complete your seasonal closet clean out in preparation for the spring/summer months. Now go forth and organize!
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