Clothes organisation hacks
June 28, 2021 4:08 AM   Subscribe

I have enough clothes and not enough storage space, and my bedroom feels really cluttered. I am looking for hacks to store and organise clothes in separate categories: (1) freshly washed/drying (2) worn once or twice but still clean. Can Mefites help me brainstorm a solution?

My bedroom is small and doesn't have a lot of useful storage space. I am looking for help to organise my cluttered clothes situation there.

Apart from clean clothes hanging in my cupboard, I also have 2 separate kinds of clothes in my bedroom.
1) freshly washed clothes drying on an airer in the middle of the room (I don't have a tumble-dryer, and I line dry my clothes. They take a few days to dry.)
2) clothes I've washed and worn already once or twice but can stand to be worn again before washing. I usually have these in a heap on the dresser. (There's no point folding them up neatly as most of my clothes are black and I need to unfold them to see what they are!)

It feels really cluttered and the line dryer takes up a lot of space, but it's the only place it can go. it's an X-wing line dryer.

The clutter stresses me out especially since I have to have a rummage to find specific garments. I have multiple kinds of the same kinds of clothing and it would be good to be able to have these stored in a way that shows me immediately what they are.

I know it sounds like I have too many clothes, but I don't. I did a big clear out last winter which actually I am now regretting because I got rid of many clothes that, now it is summer, I need! So getting rid of clothes at the moment isn't an option. The reason I have many clothes of the same type is so that I can rotate them between washes, not because I buy unnecessary duplicates.

Things I am open to buying: A better clothes airer, small to medium clothes organisation solutions. Things I'm not open to buying: new pieces of furniture.

Thanks for your advice!
posted by unicorn chaser to Home & Garden (22 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I really like the coat rack that is on the wall above our laundry hamper. It's a set of hooks that I can hang worn but still ok clothes - we call it clothing purgatory. It's self limiting- once the rack starts to fill I can decide to drop some items into the hamper.

The clothes drying is probably the biggest issue for taking up space, but I bet organisation for the pile on the dresser will help with the clutter feeling.
posted by freethefeet at 4:14 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


I have the same problem. I keep wondering about heated clothes airers: this sort of thing. That one has a smaller footprint than your current airer and would dry clothes more quickly... but it's £100, and I'm not sure how comparable the amount of drying space is. Lakeland have a few models too, also mostly £100+, along with some covers for them that are meant to improve the performance but might also be useful for reducing visual clutter.

If the room or cupboard door allows it, overdoor hooks would let you hang the once-worn clothes up, which might help with the rapid identification issue. Examples: individual hooks from John Lewis; over-door airer or ironing hook from Lakeland.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:32 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


I also use freethefeet's coat rack trick (a row of pegs for me) for things I don't want to fold, like the hoodie and joggers I wear most mornings or the linen dress I can get a few wears out of before it needs to be washed (I hang it on a hanger on the coat rack - I don't have a closet in my bedroom).

For the airer - would it be possible for you to point a fan, even a small one, at the airer, or otherwise improve air circulation and ventilation around it/in your bedroom? I mostly dry my clothes on racks indoors and a fan makes all the difference on wet days.

For organization - if you have multiples of the same clothing, can you keep them corralled together in some kind of bin/box? This could be something fancy or something from ikea or literally just an old shoebox/delivery box - whatever fits your particular combination of stuff and furniture.

I usually have these in a heap on the dresser. (There's no point folding them up neatly as most of my clothes are black and I need to unfold them to see what they are!)

I sympathize with this, as I am possessed of a large number of black undershirts that are variously short sleeve, long sleeve, or tank top and come in a summer weight and a winter weight, and it is damn near impossible to tell them apart when they are folded. But by this token, you might as well never fold/hang up anything - it doesn't just apply to clean-dirty clothes. If you want a significant quantity of clothes to look/feel tidy you generally have to either fold them up or hang them up. If these clothes are actually so dirty they would contaminate your clean clothes by contact, they probably need to be washed. When I am really on the ball I will leave articles of clothing to air overnight on a hook, then fold them and put them away in the morning (I do end up with piles on occasion, though, I'm not perfect about it).
posted by mskyle at 4:41 AM on June 28, 2021 [3 favorites]


For 2) could you put up a line in your bathroom or use hangers on a shower curtain rail? This would air them out overnight, function as a second cupboard/closet, make it easier to see what's what, and make it easier to rotate them right back into your main cupboard.

But as a fellow black-clothes-wearing person, I agree with mskyle, it does help to refold the clean-enough clothes. I can find what I want much more easily (if only because the light reflects differently off of cotton vs. rayon vs. polypro) and it keeps them looking fresher longer.
posted by cocoagirl at 4:57 AM on June 28, 2021


The quickest thing is to get boxes to organise the piles on the dresser. I like Ikea's Drona (deeper) or Skubb (shallower) boxes for things like that. Rolling things up KonMari style takes much less time and space than "proper folding", and if you devote each of a Skubb set to a different clothing type, you should be able to find things quickly. Plus concentrate on dirtying things up thoroughly, so you don't have more than two pieces of each clothing type in the "not too dirty" rotation at once, again easier with a more organised pile.

And a vertical clothes airer has a smaller footprint of course.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 5:01 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


I use the Kon-Mari folding method and I have one bin for once-worn clothes in my dresser (folding things this way gave me soooo much more space.)
posted by warriorqueen at 5:13 AM on June 28, 2021 [3 favorites]


I use this type of clothes rack, for both drying and keeping / airing clothes i intend to wear again.
It might seem cumbersome to hang stuff like t Shirts and undershirts and trousers on clothes hangers, but i can always see immediately all available items.
posted by 15L06 at 5:42 AM on June 28, 2021 [2 favorites]


Hanging once-worn clothes is much faster than folding. An over-the-door clothes hook on closet and/or bedroom door should do it.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:00 AM on June 28, 2021 [4 favorites]


I use a Valet Stand (IKEA has one) for the clothes that aren’t clean but can be worn again.
posted by atlantica at 6:36 AM on June 28, 2021 [4 favorites]


You need to fold the pile on the dresser or your clothes will never look tidy no matter what else you do.

Fold them and put them in stacks that make sense (short sleeve, long sleeve, boat neck, whatev) or get some of these ez stacks things that makes looking through stacks of clothes easier. Even that on your dresser will make a WORLD of difference.
posted by magnetsphere at 6:55 AM on June 28, 2021


For clothes between dirty and clean:
1. Over-the-door hooks.
2. Hanging them up in the closet, but facing the way opposite from clean clothes. That is, if your clothes usually face left, make these clothes face right.
posted by NotLost at 7:10 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


I had high hopes for a heated drying rail as mentioned above but it didn't work well at all.

I agree with everyone who says hooks - really helpful and can go over back of a door if you can't make holes in the wall?

I almost always wear things more than once (underwear excerpted) too and try to hang up on hanger or peg to air before putting away. Sounds like your pile isn't working, so worth giving a try.
posted by sedimentary_deer at 7:13 AM on June 28, 2021


I use a Valet Stand (IKEA has one) for the clothes that aren’t clean but can be worn again.

I have the same Ikea valet stand. It's skinny and can fit a lot of places, and holds a decent amount of clothes neatly without heaping so they can air and I can see at a glance what's on deck. But it doesn't hold a TON of clothes, which is also a plus, in my opinion. If it's been 2 weeks and I haven't re worn an item on the valet stand, into the laundry it goes.
posted by phunniemee at 7:27 AM on June 28, 2021 [2 favorites]


Do you have an available space to hang one of these on? I had it on my door a while, till it broke the door. Now it hangs off of the solid-er construction of my free standing shower.

That’s an Amazon link but I just popped into my local Bed Bath and Beyond to nab it.

I hang worn. It not ready to was clothes on there. As it is perpendicular to me, I take an item from the front, wear it, then rehang it in the back for a week or so of airing (since pandemic I’ve switched to a capsule wardrobe style rotation — ten similar shirts in a rainbow of colors plus a couple of science positive shirts for days I go out of the house.
posted by tilde at 7:30 AM on June 28, 2021


A coat rack for once-worn clothes is much more vertical and can fit into a corner. In general, I'm a huge fan of hooks. Something like this is super unobtrusive. And you can make it from ikea hooks. Or, use 2 or three of those Ikea hooks and place clothes on hangers on them, similar to this.

For clothes that are drying, maybe give them 24 hours, and after that, put away those that are dry, but for those that need more time, can you consolidate them to hangers on a hook like the above or like this?
posted by hydra77 at 8:46 AM on June 28, 2021


If it's clean enough to wear again, I think it's clean enough to go back in the closet. I just hang those clothes in one section.
posted by pinochiette at 9:03 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks for these great ideas. I researched the Konmari folding technique - super easy! My pile looks a bit nicer now. But yeah definitely going to look into buying some of those over-the-door hook-thingies. I like the idea of hanging things out to dry straight onto hangers to suspend from hooks - makes it easier to transition them back into the cupboard.
posted by unicorn chaser at 9:09 AM on June 28, 2021


I bought a heated airer - terrible mistake, the clothes dry in strips where they touch the heated rails. You can literally see the wet / dry stripes. Have to constantly move/ adjust / rearrange and drives me mad. It was a cheap Argos one for about £40 though.

I have the IKEA valet stand and really like it, clothes on it look pretty tidy. I also use it if I have an early start and want to put clothes out ready the night before.
posted by ElasticParrot at 9:17 AM on June 28, 2021


I have the 3 Tier Plus drying rack shown halfway down this page (Amazon link). It's more vertical and has holes in the corners to dry things on clothes hangers directly.

I also do the "point a fan to the rack" trick and it works well.
posted by travertina at 9:19 AM on June 28, 2021


It strikes me as unusual that your clothes are taking several days to dry - I line dry all my clothes indoors, and even in winter it's only a day and a half max, usually I can do a load every day. Are you opening windows to prevent the humidity building up?

You don't say if you can mount things to the wall, but I love my wall mounted, folding clothes lines like this. I have three, one above each other, and the fact they leave floor space underneath is hugely more practical. Plus I'm way more likely to fold them away than put a whole airer away.
posted by stillnocturnal at 9:56 AM on June 28, 2021


I just use a laundry basket that is specifically for "worn once but still clean', would that look too cluttered for you?

Do your clean clothes normally live in a dresser or a closet? Can you designate a space (either a drawer, or a dividing line in your closet) so that you know which items have been worn once? In my closet, I just stuck to a rule that anything that I just washed got hung up on the far right of the closet, and that way the left-most clothes were always the "oldest" clothes that I should wear first.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:19 AM on June 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


An add on to the konmari folding method for all black clothes:

I put info on the label (eg. my leggings: F for full length, "3/4" and "S" for short) and then fold them so that the label is on top. Revolutionised my drawers, as I no longer destroy the whole drawer to find that one black item of clothing that I need right now.
posted by kjs4 at 7:23 PM on June 29, 2021 [2 favorites]


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