Organize Your Closet for Winter Wear

When winter season comes, so does closet clutter. With heavy coats, scarves, hats, gloves, mittens, and boots, the entranceway closet is usually filled to capacity during the cold months. If there are kids in the household, morning time becomes more frantic while they search for a lost mitten or a misplaced hat. Take back your mornings by organizing your closets so everything you need is within quick reach.

The first thing you need to do is to get rid of many of your winter items. Gloves and mittens are the biggest culprit of wasted closet space because if one is missing, the pair becomes useless. If you can't find both items of a pair, don't keep them. Then go through the kids items and see what your children have outgrown since last year. If something no longer fits, sell it or donate it. You'll want to judge everything else on how often you use it. Do you really use every scarf that you own? If there are items that you didn't use last winter, don't keep them around this one.

After you have reduced the number of items that you own, you need to organize your closet. To do this, separate adult coats from children coats. Keep them on different sides of the closet. Each person should be able to open the closet door and go directly to the coat they need. While a few different coats might be necessary due to weather fluctuations, try to pack up summer and spring wear as soon as you feel you can. This will save you both space and time.

Once the coats are sorted out, turn to the accessories. There are a few different ways to do this. One way is to get a container for each category, such as children's hats or adult gloves. Another way is to give each family member their own container. Each child will store their hat, mittens, and scarf in their own container, which can be placed under their coat in the closet. Let each person pick out a color for their container and add a label. When your kid gets home from school, make sure that the put everything away in their box.

Winter shoes and boots can be the hardest to organize. That's because with snow, ice, or rain, they become too wet to store directly in the closet. At the same time, you don't want a pile of boots to stack up near the door. You can solve this problem if you make a specific space for boots to dry. You can set them on a welcome mat or a plastic tray that can hold the water that drips off. Once the boots are dry, store them in the closet.

When you live in a climate that gets cold in the winter, you have to take extra care that your closet is well organized. By doing so you're ensuring that your children will always be dressed warmly and make it to school on time. This tips will make sure that winter mornings aren't a hassle.