Monthly Archives: July 2011

Preparing for Back to School

The coat closet can be used for a lot more than coats. It can be difficult to make enough storage room in any home. Using the coat closet as an entryway home organizer is a good way to keep your home more organized. If your coat closet is packed with coats and junk, it’s time to give it a makeover. This small area of the home can offer big benefits if its space is maximized.

1) First, you should clear out the coat closet of everything. Get it nice and clean since you probably don’t get in there to vacuum and dust very often. This is the best time to do it while it’s completely empty.

2) Now decide what you can do without. Donating coats to charity is a great way to help out those in need. You can also get a pretty good tax deduction, since coats are generally worth more than regular clothes. Get rid of beat up shoes, ones that don’t fit right, or ones that you simply never wear. If you don’t think you’ll make it to the thrift store with all that you want to give, call around. Most charities will come and pick up the items that you want to donate. All you have to do is put them on the front porch.

3) Another option is to have a garage sale or sell your items on auction sites. Nice coats and boots will generally sell once they’re in season. You can use the money to turn your coat closet into the organization center that you’re dreaming of.

4) Most people’s coat closets are near the entryway of their homes. Are you tired of everyone coming in and shedding all of their belongings right inside the front door? Well, the coat closet is a great place to get these things organized. Hooks, shelves, baskets, bins, calendars, shoe cubbies, and more can all be added into a small space like a coat closet so that things don’t get thrown around the house.

5) If your coat closet is too small to hold coats and all of the items that you would like to store there, consider storing most of your coats in another place. The back of your closet, in a spare bedroom, or on a rolling garment rack with a dust cover can all be great places to store coats that you don’t use very often. Making room for keeping shoes, backpacks and other everyday items may be more important to you than having every coat hanging in the coat closet.

6) If you do keep coats in the coat closet, you should update the clothes hangers. A nice clothes hanger makes the closet look great. Coat hangers, like wood hangers, should be used for heavy items. You may want to choose higher end hangers for your coat closet because it’s nice for guests and better quality ones ensure that your coats don’t end up on the floor.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Laundry Area Organization

Is your laundry room so cluttered that you can barely use it? Is there little to no storage or space to do your laundry like you want when you want? Use these steps to make the most of the space that you do have and get your laundry room organized. It doesn’t matter if you have a large space or a small closet, these steps can help you to improve your laundry room so that you can be more efficient when you do your laundry.

1) First, consider what you really need. Make a wish list and don’t think that you don’t have room for things like a folding table, ironing board, or a hanging bar for drying clothes and getting them ready for the closet. These are just the basics, but they all can fit into even the smallest of spaces.

2) Ironing may seem like an impossible task in a cramped laundry room. However, with a folding ironing board or one that is mounted to the wall, you can make it easy in the smallest of laundry rooms. You really only need a couple of inches of space to fit it into your laundry room. Simply fold it down when you’re ready and fold it back up when you’re done.

3) Now, you may be thinking that there is no way you could fit a folding table into your laundry room. However, there are ways to fit them in. You can buy a folding table that slides between or beside your washer and dryer. You can pull it out when you need it and then put it back. Another option is to mount a board over the washer and dryer. Mounting on hinges means that you’ll be able to fold it down, right over the washer and dryer, and then fold it back up when you’re done. You can install a simple latch or lock to make sure that it doesn’t swing open when you don’t want it to. Some people simply keep a board beside the washer or dryer and lay it across the top when they’re ready to fold. Consider the option and decide what will be the most usable option for you.

4) Most laundry rooms only have one shelf. Adding a couple of shelves or even cabinets can make a big difference in your storage space. You can use inexpensive wire shelving so that you have a place to hang items that you need to dry or organize before you put them away. You can also install a hanging bar or use a rolling garment rack to hang and organize clothing. Stock up on good clothes hangers so that you are never searching for the right hangers when it’s time to fold. When your laundry room is in order, your housekeeping will seem so much easier.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Storing All of Your Accessories

We use our closets for a lot more than just clothes and shoes. This is why a lot of clothing organizers don’t often solve all of your closet problems. We like to use our closets for everything that we want to keep out of sight. Everything from sports equipment to camera equipment can end up in your closet. Learning how to store these things correctly can help you to better manage your closet while making room for the things that you do use every day.

One option is to stop using your dressers for clothing and start using them for accessories and other closet clutter culprits. Dressers aren’t really designed very well for clothing that you use every day. You end up digging through folded stacks, folding and unfolding as you go along, destroying whatever semblance of organization that you once had. If the drawer isn’t large enough, you end up stuffing and cramming, wrinkling and possibly damaging your clothes.

You may be thinking that you need your dresser for your small items, like swimwear, underwear, socks, ties and belts, but there are plenty of specialty hangers on the market that will help you organize and hang these items to get them out of your dresser. Buckets and bins are great for storing socks and underwear in your closet, making room in the dresser for a multitude of storage items that you would like to get out of your closet.

Shoes are another thing that often clutter-up the closet. Are you tired of digging through a mountain of shoes to get to the ones that you want to wear? Are you tired of finally finding them only to see that they’ve been crushed or scuffed by the rest of the shoes? Why not consider getting the shoes out of the closet? You can store them in an orderly fashion underneath your bed. Choose a rolling drawer or container that easily slides in and out from under the bed. Use risers to make more room for taller shoes. You can use a trunk for out of season shoes, or stack them neatly up the corners of the closet in clear plastic shoe boxes.

Use specialty hangers to get your clothes organized as well. Skirt hangers, pants hangers, and other specialty clothes hangers are great for hanging multiple items from one hanging spot. Coordinate hangers allow you to pair items into outfits, quickly doubling the space. Cascading hangers allow you to hang a lot of items from the neck of one hanger. With just a few adjustments in your bedroom, your closet could be organized and free of clutter in no time.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.