Organizing Your Walk-in Closet for the Winter in Ann Arbor, MI

Winter clothing tends to be bulkier and heavier than the clothes that you wear during warmer seasons, so it makes sense to put the winter clothes somewhere out of the way when you aren’t wearing them. Having to dig past your winter clothes to get to the rest of your wardrobe could make getting ready in the morning take a lot longer, and it’s easy to end up with a disorganized closet when you do that. But that means that when winter does come around, you’ll need to make some adjustments to be able to easily access your winter wardrobe when you need it. Take a look at some tips that can help you organize and optimize your walk-in closetfor winter in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the surrounding areas.

Since you have to reorganize your closet for the winter anyway, this is a good time to go over all the clothes in your closet to decide what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. Chances are that you’ve outgrown, worn out, or just gotten tired of at least some items in your closet over the previous months. Overcrowding is one of the major reasons why closets get disorganized. A good way to reduce an overcrowding problem is to go through your clothes every so often and decide what stays and what goes. The change of seasons is as good a time as any to go through your clothes and get rid of anything that you’re not going to be wearing in the future.

Take your clothes out of the closet and divide them into three groups: clothes to keep, clothes to donate, and clothes that belong in the trash. Once you get rid of the trash and donate groupings, you can concentrate on putting the rest of the clothes back into the closet in a way that makes sense for the winter season.

If you already have your winter clothes stored in convenient cubbies or stackable storage totes, this part will be easy – just remove the winter clothing that you plan to hang or stack on shelves for easy access during the season, and replace them with the spring and summer clothes that you won’t be wearing again until the weather warms up.

If you aren’t using these methods to store out-of-season clothes already, this is the time to make the switch. Storing clothes that you’re not going to be wearing in convenient cubbies or plastic totes creates the space you need not just to hang your in-season clothes, but to be able to sort them and look through them easily. You don’t want clothes racks that are so stuffed with hangers that you can’t look for an item without knocking clothes off of hangers or pushing them too close to each other.

To keep the clothes in storage safe, make sure that they’re stored in a dry place with plenty of ventilation. Skip the mothballs and instead consider adding some cedar chips to your storage boxes. This helps keep moths and other clothes-ruining pests away while giving your clothes a fresh, pleasant scent.

Your bedroom closet is fine for some winter things, like bulky sweaters and jeans. But large, puffy winter jackets and coats, snow boots, and other bulky outerwear can take up a lot of space, weigh down your hanging racks, and make it difficult to look through your other clothes. Use a hall closet or mudroom for storing these large, space-consuming items to leave yourself more room in your bedroom closet.

If you don’t have a hall closet or mudroom, you can easily create a mudroom in your garage. Just install a board with some hooks on the wall for coats and other hanging items, add some bins for boots and shoes, and place a bench in the area so that you can easily sit to remove or change shoes and socks. You may also want to install some shelves where you can leave items that you want to be able to easily grab on your way out the door, like schoolbooks, garage door openers, and other small items.

One thing that closets often don’t have enough of is lighting. And in the winter, when daylight hours are at their most limited, that can be a problem. Luckily, it’s a problem with an easy solution. You can purchase LED lights designed to stick to the wall or even install strings of lights along the edges of shelves in order to cast some additional light on your clothing choices.

This way, it will be easier for you to find the clothes that you want to wear when you want them, and you’ll be able to see how well tops and bottoms pair together without having to bring each potential combination out of the closet and into the bedroom when you’re trying to choose an outfit. This helps cut down on clutter and disorganization in your closet and ensures that the clothes that you’re not wearing stay in the closet where they belong, not scattered around your bedroom.