Alternative for chest of drawers to keep clothes?

April 15, 2008 5:28 PM

Alternative for chest of drawers to keep clothes? I'm moving to a new apartment and don't feel like lugging a heavy chest of drawers 3 stories. What are good ways for you to store clothes that makes it easy to access most of them daily and doesn't look too "ghetto"? Plastic drawers are an option of course.
posted by sandmanwv to home & garden (12 comments total)

You don't mention if you have large closets in your new place, but these (and many many others like them) hanging canvas clothing organizers are great for most stuff you'd store in a dresser. Easier to access, even, than a dresser.
posted by nkknkk at 5:32 PM on April 15

My wife loves her chrome wire shelves that we picked up at Ikea. They look pretty good for how simple they are. We both really dislike drawers though. I like having everything visible and accessible.
posted by AaRdVarK at 5:40 PM on April 15

I bought a wire shelf system like this one a few years ago when dorm stuff was out on sale. (I bought mine for substantially less than it's listed on that page, anyway.) You can change the configuration and add on to it depending on how much closet space you have. Nothing terribly classy, but the whole thing breaks down into a small box, and it's made four cross-country moves with me.

I also bought some canvas bins at IKEA that perfectly fit into the cubes created by the wire system, so they work nicely as drawers for stuff like underwear and socks, the sorts of things that don't stack neatly.
posted by adiabat at 5:41 PM on April 15

Under the bed storage?
posted by orange swan at 5:55 PM on April 15

I'm a big fan of having everything hanging on hangers - even t-shirts and sweaters can be folded in half and hung up, and this prevents them from getting all smushed inside the drawer as you shuffle through them to find the one you want.

I have underwear/socks/etc. in those hanging canvas things (a few dollars in the Ikea As-Is section). I also have this bed from Ikea which has really nice looking and functional drawers that are on little wheels.
posted by amethysts at 5:55 PM on April 15

If you don't have closet space, a garment rack would also hold the canvas containers that nkknkk suggests.
posted by kitkatcathy at 5:59 PM on April 15

Many of the dressers at Ikea come in multiple boxes, so it's still lugging them up the stairs, but they are 1)flat and not as bulky and 2) in pieces so its also not as bulky.

Just tossing it out there...they are also often cheap enough to abandon when you leave the apartment too :)
posted by legotech at 6:52 PM on April 15

I got fed up with drawers and just installed a big metal bar across the roof of my room, and hung all my clothes there with the aid of a long metal hook. It opened up a lot of space on the ground, it meant I could see all my clothes at once, and it was a decent little talking point. It's definitely not the classiest thing, but I wouldn't really call it 'ghetto'.
posted by twirlypen at 7:22 PM on April 15

I have all my clothes in labeled plastic tubs in the closet. We took the bar out -- we hang up nothing -- and installed shelves. Not the most elegant solution, but just close the closet door and it's hidden.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:48 PM on April 15

Put folded pants and tshirts on shelves. Socks, underthings, and accessories in canvas bins or baskets on the shelves.
posted by yohko at 10:51 PM on April 15

Filing cabinets :) Take the drawers out, and even a 4-drawer cabinet is portable. I use old, semi-busted, repainted filing cabinets from recycling places. The drawers are nice and deep, everything is accessible on good, slide-out drawers.

And as legotech said, abandonment at the end of a lease is also an option :)
posted by flutable at 2:25 AM on April 16

I haven't used a dresser in many years. I keep my folding clothes in sliding wire baskets. When the closet is big enough to hold all my hanging clothes plus the sliders, they go in the closet. This works best if the closet has a high clothes rail - not the standard (mostly useless) closet design with a rail about 3 feet below the ceiling and a totally worthless shelf over the rail.

If you have a worthless closet design, ask the landlord if you can tear out the rail and shelf, and install a closet system. (Every time I've asked, the landlord has been happy to let me upgrade the closet.) For about $100 you can replace the useless shelf/rail with a high rail, add a double rail if you have more than 1-rail's worth of hangable clothes, and still have plenty of room to put the sliding baskets on one side. crude ASCII diagram:


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- top rail


shirts go here.................long clothes go here ...............More shirts go here

s s
h h
i i
r r
t t

----------------------------- second rail ................ sliding baskets go here
pants go here
.....................................................................| \ ............................./|
.....................................................................| .\ ........................../ .|
p p ................................................................| ..\____________/ ..|
a a
n n
t t
s s
.....................................................................| \ ............................./|
.....................................................................| .\ .......................... / .|
.....................................................................|.. \_____________/ ..|

.........................................shoes go here


If the closet has a narrow opening with alcoves on each end, make one alcove a double hang area, then put your baskets in the center, then make the long hanging area in the other alcove.

I usually also remove the closet doors and put in a curtain - giving me unobstructed access to the center of the closet. The doors can go in storage or under the bed, and it only takes a minute to hang them again when vacating the apartment.
posted by jcdill at 8:51 AM on April 17