Thursday, November 10, 2011

Are your winter clothes put away?

Rubbermaid HomeFree series closet system

I am a messy person. My closet doesn't look anything like the one above. I was messy before kids, and kids have only made it worse. In my struggle to overcome the mess I've discovered a wonderful articles at Like Mother, Like Daughter that actually make me feel HOPEFUL and not judged or depressed (just scroll down towards the bottom and check out the sidebar...she lists them nicely there).

One of these articles is titled "Laundry Problems Start With Clothes". The basic gist of it was that most of us have more clothes in our closets than we need (or at least than we need in any particular season)...and that this hampers (pun intended) our attempts to get the laundry under control.

Now, I wanted to address a particularly Texifornian issue regarding the storage of winter clothes.

On Leilas Laundry Worksheet she asked:

"Why are shorts cluttering the world up if it’s winter?"

MY ANSWER:   Well, because I live in Texas, that's why. It actually may have a low of 20 degrees one day and a high of 85 degrees the next in the dead middle of winter here.

In Texas and California (except the mountains), you can't really put away summer clothes, except the swimsuits and maybe tank tops. So my solution in winter is to put at least half of the summer clothes away (because at very least they won't be wearing it as much as in summer). This usually entails boxing up all the t-shirts with very summery designs (surfboards and palm trees and such), tank tops, and all but 2-3 pairs of shorts.

I still have the problem of needing much more shelf space in winter than in summer (since you can't put away all the summer stuff and the winter stuff is so much bulkier), but at least it's slightly more manageable with some of the summer stuff put away.

Now I'd like to ask you some questions:

  1. Have you put your winter clothes away yet?
  2. Have any great suggestions on transitioning closets from summer to winter, clothing storage tips, etc?  (If you know of any good way to deal with the extra clothes in winter, I'd be especially grateful to hear it!)
Please share your answers in the comments below.

This post is participating in Aloha Friday and 2 Question Thursday and Home Haven Thursday.

3 comments:

  1. Even this far north I usually keep one or two pairs of shorts out through the winter. I have put away most of our summer sandals and clothes.

    No great storage tips. I have one closet where I keep extra clothes and shoes. I just pulled out all my boots and our winter jackets and put the summer stuff in the same place.

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  2. I have no insight into this problem as I live in the southern California desert. In winter, we get frost and up in the mountains, where I board my horses, it's already freezing! But, yes, I also need capris and shorts for those over 90 degree days that we also have! We just visited the Sierra Nevada and I have a suitcase full of winter clothes and I think I'll just leave them there! That's my solution!

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  3. I have all my summer clothes put away and my winter clothes hanging in the closet. I am always cold so I tend to wear more long sleeves and jackets. I think we had a really short summer this year and it was disappointing since I like the heat.
    I like to find some great organization tips for the house. Not sure when I can get to them, but still would like to work on them slowly.

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