BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Cleaning Cleaning your Coat Closet

Our coat closet is so jammed full of stuff that we can't use it! We just hang our coats on our chairs. Which seems really silly. And the shoe tree is overflowing with shoes. We don't even own that many shoes, compared with many people we know! But I think every single shoe we DO own (including summer shoes!!) is out on the active shoe tree. Which is silly.

Do people put their coats away into the attic? Do you actually remember to go get them in the spring?

LOL, this made me laugh. You really keep out your off season stuff all year? ;-)

You have a basement, yes? Put up a rod from the rafters and hang your off season coats and jackets right there. :-)

For shoes, I will need more data. What categories of shoes do you have out there on your tree?

I think maybe it's because there's only two of us, and we don't have a lot of clothes? So normally it doesn't seem like it's worth it to move things around. For example in the winter I only wear 2 coats - my ski jacket for casual occasions, and my long wool coat for more formal ones. That's it. Bob really only wears his one thick yellow jacket.

So we wear those from say November through about now.

I suppose even moving those three jackets out would help a bit, I would just need to figure out where to put them. The basement gets mildewy - it's not really a functional basement, so I wouldn't want to put clothes down there. The attic gets REALLY hot (like plastic-melting hot) so that's a different problem.

I did just pull out three HEAVY leather jackets with their linings, which is our motorcycling gear. So those can go somewhere until we get the motorcycles fixed. We keep meaning to fix the motorcycles - and it keeps getting not done - so those jackets have been sitting there for about 4 years now without being used. So that will help.

DO you have a garage or utility/laundry room you can have an rod from?

For puffy stuff like ski jackets, I highly recommend the vacuum bags. I have some that you just seal & roll up (no vacuum required) and I use them when traveling--they really reduce the space in the suitcase and I put t-shirts, yoga pants, sweats & undies in there.

I think they'd be great for big jackets and coats. They will wrinkle some if they're in there for awhile, depending on the fabric, but if you get them cleaned at the beginning of the season, that would take care of that.

And, then, you can put them on a shelf or into a storage container in a closet, or probably even in your basement as they should be safe from mildew if sucked & sealed. They advertise pouring water on them.

I got a package of about six from Target or Walmart for maybe $15. My daughter uses tons of these for storing baby clothes, off-season clothes, etc. She packs up several of the bags in big rubbermaid containers to store.

Oh, and my coats do stay in my coat closet (front closet) year round. I have two "coats" and a bunch of jackets -- fleece, rain, warmup and it's just the best place to store them. I wouldn't hang anything else in there in warmer weather anyway so that's just their home.

I keep shoes in my bedroom closet. I do have to pick a few pair up from mostly the bedroom but often in the living area once a week or so & take them back to the closet. I've read it keeps your house cleaner to take them off at the door and store them there. I just haven't ever tried that.

But, I'll keep it in mind for my dream home to set that up. I'd also need a bench or something to put down the stuff I'm always carrying to & fro -- groceries, laptop, purse, books. Otherwise, I'll do just what I do now--distribute everything and keep my shoes on till they bother me (usually when I want to put my feet on the ottoman or curl up on the couch.)

I'm inspired by Jilly's video - maybe I'll do a short photo tour of the kitchen / dining area while it's fairly clean so you can see what I've been doing

OK first, the eating area of the kitchen. I got a new tablecloth because the old one was all stained. This new one is made out of recycled plastic bottles! It is so neat! It makes me happy New place mats, same reason. I think we ran the poor Scooba 5 times in a row before the floor was reasonably clean. He's sitting in the back left corner.



Here's the liquor area which was really overflowing before and now is just slightly overflowing. I use these all for my Champagne cocktails and sangrias I make for my WineIntro website.



So this area along was a TON of time to clean. It used to be jammed full of corks, giant pieces of wood, sword pieces, crafting supplies, and all sorts of other stuff.

OK facing the other direction is the cooking part of the kitchen. It is mostly clean except for the area on the immediate left which is "Bob's Area". It seems like he is not going to clean it out. So either it stays all messy or I have to do it myself.



On the center counter is our sprout maker which I *love* - I highly encourage everyone to make their own sprouts!

A close up of the stove/microwave area. I had to scrub both down quite a lot.



Oh and the egg shaped thing on the counter is a microwave egg cooker which is AWESOME, I highly recommend it for making hard boiled eggs in your microwave.

WOW, you did a great job cleaning that up. Where did all the crafting stuff end up?

OK looking down past the fridge it goes to the back bathroom -



The shoe tree is at the end, and the closet is on the right of it.

So I have a pair of good hiking boots, a pair of good sneakers, a pair of casual black shoes, a slip-on pair of Chinese shoes, and then two pairs of boots (black, brown) that I wear with all my dresses. So these are really all the shoes I wear. Bob has a pair of good hiking boots, a pair of golf shoes, a pair of serious sneakers, a pair of casual sneakers, and maybe another pair of sword-work sneakers. Hmmm. So we do wear all of these quite often.

I wear the casual black shoes for sword class each week. The slip-ons for chores. Good hiking boots and good sneakers when we go out exploring. And the two boots are what I wear any time I go out for dinner or such, I wear either one or the other.

The bathroom is fairly tiny -



My friend Jody made me the lovely stained glass fish!

The left half of the hall closet is jackets. So you can see it's stuffed even though I took the motorcycle jackets out of it. For winter I have a thick ski jacket and a formal black jacket. Then a rain coat, my sword jacket, a light leather jacket for spring / fall, and Bob's windbreaker that I wear.



Bob probably has a few more windbreaker / pullover options for various golf weather conditions.

And the other half is our recycling bin set.

Lisa, I adore the fish!!!! Does she make those to order? I want one. :-)

Ok, let's start with the bathroom. Your bathroom has plenty of room. You just aren't looking at it from at tiny house perspective. You should be thinking of it as a utility room with a toilet, instead of a bathroom with a washer-dryer.

It would be easy to add some container-store organizers or home depot rods, or even simple shelving over the laundry units. They way I see it, there is a ton of wasted vertical space in there.

Containerizing, done right, is not ugly. It can be a work of art! I would absolutely go in there with some fresh blank paper, a nice pencil, and empty your mind of how you normally see this room. You have a wall space opposite the units, for example, where you could build in some pretty brushed steel hooks for off season jackets,or even hang a short rod from pretty chains from the ceiling.

You are right that the coat closet is too stuffed. Nothing in there can breathe and it's not easy to use.

Let me think on the closet some more. The recycling center - i might also have some thoughts on that.

BTW I think the shoe thing is perfect as it is. You use all those and it works, so i'd leave it alone. :-)

More notes: your kitchen is amazingly clean. i am impressed as heck.

But. How does your Roomba get around all the stuff on the floor?

More notes: why are you blocking that door to the outside?

Jilly - she is the person whose house just burnt down so I imagine all her supplies are in storage. If you remind me in about six months I can ask her! I *love* that stained glass fish

Over the washer and dryer there are already a full set of shelves that go up to the ceiling, and they're full of stuff. So that space is very full.

The space between the washing machines and the wall is very narrow, so we can't put anything in there and still have the ability to walk to the toilet. There are a row of hooks there already, but we can't hang anything on them without impeding a walker.

The crafting stuff is all back up in James' room which is where it lives, in shelves in his closets. The wood stuff is down in the basement which is where all of Bob's wood-working stuff is.

Thank you on the kitchen, it took a LOT of hands-and-knees scrubbing. We go out hiking and tromping and it's amazing how grimy a floor can get.

We have to put the chairs in the living room when Roomba / Scooba run. We move the trash can, cat food and cat food container. But for example we don't bother to move the cat tower or the wine fridge or wine bottle holder. Those just stay still.

The door the shoes are in front of lead to a second floor tiny porch which used to have stairs down to the driveway. Those rotted out long ago. So now it's just a little porch over the driveway. So that would be for emergency use only, if there was a fire and someone wanted to try to jump down from that porch.

On the shoes, I still feel "guilty" that we have so many shoes. I know many parts of the world have people with no shoes, or just one pair! Do I really need black boots AND brown boots? But I wear my dresses all the time as my "going out of the house" clothing. And the boots match them. If I'm going to provide a professional appearance when I do an origami talk or a wine dinner, I guess it's reasonable not to wear my hiking boots to the occasion ...

My professional opinion as someone who has been working on simplicity for the last known Epoch, is that you do not have any frivolous shoes.

Leave the shoes alone - I think you have it about as perfect as someone can get. It's not good for your feet or shoes to use one pair every day either - both shoes and feet need to breathe. Let the first world guilt in this area go - having a small amount of proper footwear is as worthwhile as having the right coat for the right weather.

If you have no room for hooks and rods, then go with Deb's vacuum bag suggestion. The items won't breathe in there, so make sure everything is clean and bone dry before storing. Then run water over the bag to test for sealing. If you get the all-clear - into the basement they can go. No mildew issues and they will be nice, stiff and flat, ready for use later.

When it's time to let them out of their bags, shake them, and just them a week to breathe and regain their fluff.

I wish I could come to your house and show you ideas.

That's very sweet Jill! I like the virtual approach, it means I can ponder them and then put them into action!

I'm not quite convinced winter is over, so I'm not quite ready to put away those winter coats. But in another few weeks I will take the plunge and find a new home for them!

It's funny - right now spring in Camp Verde is so odd. We have very chilly days and then hot days. So i have to have more types of jackets out and available than usual. Plus scarves and gloves for cold days, flip flops and sun hats for warm days...hehehe

I know at some point soon it will just be HOT (100 degrees) until mid-October. This is much nicer. But I feel like i have jackets and scarves and tuques everywhere!