Help me give my hats a home
January 21, 2010 7:25 AM   Subscribe

Help! I has hats... hats who has no home. Help me organize my hats.

I'm a girl who likes hats... mostly newsboy hats, a few crocheted slouchy style hats, but no baseball caps. I have maybe 6-8 different hats, all of which I which I wear on a fairly regular basis.

Yes, I have summer hats and winter hats.

I also live in a smallish house, so thus far my method of storage has been to shove them all in a little basket and call it good.

But surely there is a better/more artful hat storage method out there?

I don't like the racks used to store baseball caps, because they don't really work well for the hats I wear and, well, they're ugly.

Beyond that, I've never really been able to find any good storage methods.

So... please tell me, if you wear hats too, how do you store yours?

(Bonus points for dealing with the fiancee's copious amount of golfer style hats and fedoras, as well. We're just some hat lovin' people.)
posted by finitejest to Home & Garden (12 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: I have quite a few hats. I don't have some great storage system, but what I do do is keep the off-season hats in a couple of decorative hat boxes on my bedroom closet shelf. Hats for the current season (along with gloves and scarves in winter) go in a large decorative basket on top of a bookshelf by the front door. It's pretty easy for me to take down the basket and get the hat. This isn't my permanent solution, however. I am renovating my house, and will be creating a hall closet and also putting up some hooks by the front door. So I think the hat basket will be moved to the hall closet shelf and I'll likely sometimes hang my most frequently worn hats on the hooks.
posted by orange swan at 7:32 AM on January 21, 2010


IKEA makes these tiny little knobs (they are very cheap -- bonus! I'm using them in my kitchen makeover right now). Why not find a bit of wallspace somewhere (could be in a closet, or not) and screw the little knobs in and hang them all up where you can see them? $1.99 for a 6-pack!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:55 AM on January 21, 2010


Best answer: I also use a couple of hatboxes for the off-season hats, and then I put the everyday inseason hats on a couple of clip-hooks inside the front door (my husband's fedora and my wintery rain hat, currently) and the other in-season hats in a pair of baskets that hold our other in-season accessories (currently, gloves, scarves, mittens, balaclavas, etc.). These go on the closet shelf.

When we had a baby, we just added another hook and another basket for his little hats and accessories. :)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:04 AM on January 21, 2010


Best answer: I have about 15-20 baseball hats all organized on one of those plastic chains with plastic clips on it. I attached the chain to the top of a closet in the corner and the hats are neatly stored in a long row out of the way.
posted by COD at 8:04 AM on January 21, 2010


You don't even need knobs- my hats line the hall of my entryway and hang on nails. You won't see them anyway since the hats completely cover the hanging mechanism.
posted by rmless at 8:06 AM on January 21, 2010


I'd start searching for vintage coat racks, since, of course, back in the day everyone wore hats and they were intended to have hats hung from them as well. Growing up, my grandparents had a coat rack with a mirror, which proudly displayed my grandfather's many driving hats and looked pretty awesome.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:09 AM on January 21, 2010


(Oh, and if you want to spend more money and really have a lot of storage space, consider something along these lines, with storage space on the bottom.)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:11 AM on January 21, 2010


it may not help, but you should hear this video
posted by klapaucius at 8:43 AM on January 21, 2010


For slouchy hats, and scarves-gloves-earmuffs etc, we have an over-the-door shoe organizer (something like this) on the inside of the door to our coat closet. It wouldn't be big enough for your big hats, but perhaps getting some of the smaller ones out of the way will make it easier for you to find a space for the remaining large ones?
posted by wyzewoman at 8:54 AM on January 21, 2010


As others have said, the seasonal solution works well: keep off-season hats stored in hatboxes. Hatboxes have many virtues: they're lightweight but sturdy, they're stackable, they're often ventilated (just a couple of small punchholes is enough to provide a bit of air), you can buy them in colors or in plain kraft-paper brown or decorate them to complement your home.

In addition to a collection of off-season hats in hatboxes stacked here and there, I keep:

- small, slouchy winter hats stashed with my coats and gloves. I have one teeny tiny crumply hat that lives in the pocket of my favorite winter coat. I always know where to find it, but if I forget to grab a hat when I head out the door, I can pull it out of my pocket.

- a row of big cartwheel straw hats hanging on the wall of one room. These hats are too big to fit most hatboxes, and too handsome to hide. The ikea knobs linked above are a cute idea, but I just banged some tiny nails into the wall, high up, and hung my hats on 'em. They look great, they don't get crushed, I keep 'em dusted, and they're always handy for wearing. (Pro-tip: don't hang them higher than you can reach on tippytoes, or it will become too much trouble to grab one down.)

In previous apartments, I have had:
- a vertical row of hats hung on nails or tiny coathooks. In one apartment, I kept an array of hats framing the top and sides of the front door, and a tiny frame holding the words "wherever I hang my hat."
- a big mirror with a row of small coathooks driven into the sides, as PhoBWanKenobi mentions. (You can sometimes pick up these hatrack mirrors in vintage shops, but you can also make your own as I did. Find an inexpensive vintage mirror with plenty of wooden trim on the frame, so you don't run the risk of driving a screwback into the glass; you might look for a mirror that used to be paired with a bureau.) Buy a half-dozen or so small coathooks from the hardware store, and attach them to the mirror. So easy! Be sure to hang it securely, or just prop it on a bureau or table.
- a piece of chain with metal clips attached (you can attach them with wire or thread or paperclips or whatever) and hanging from the ceiling, so it displays a cascade of hats. Good for a tight corner if you have one. You can pick up good looking clips inexpensively at the art supply store or the hardware store rather than splurging on fancy clips from a housewares store.

If you want to display slouchy hats, stuff them with tissue paper and they'll both hang more easily and retain their shape better.
posted by Elsa at 11:27 AM on January 21, 2010


I have many, many hats. If you like looking at your hats, install a long shelf, high up on your wall, close to the ceiling - then you can store your hats on the styrofoam heads which go for about 4 bucks on ebay.

Good use of unused space.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:32 PM on January 21, 2010


Mine live stacked on top of my bedposts.
posted by Violet Hour at 1:57 AM on January 22, 2010


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