HOW TO ORGANIZE OUTERWEAR

… including cardigans, jackets, and coats

If your closets are overflowing or jumbled, you’re likely wasting so much time looking for things and also damaging your clothes as they are being jammed and snagged in your closets. So, we continue my series on clothing organization. I covered blouse organization in my previous post. Here I continue with the best ways to properly organize and store your outerwear, even the bulkiest of winter coats, to keep them in tip-top shape and maximize storage for you and your entire household. And, did you know, you can also organize your spaces according to your organizing style? You can find out what your organizing style is here.

Before organizing your outerwear, you must purge the cardigans, jackets, and coats that you do not like and no longer use. Be ruthless and purge the excess so you can more easily store what you do need and use.

In my freebie library here, I include guides which help walk you through the organizing process and help you decide what to purge and keep. I also include my declutter and organizing challenge calendars and guides to help direct you through each area of your home. These guides ensure you get through every nook and cranny and finally get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

In this post, we focus on how to organize your outerwear. Below, I share ideas on how to organize your cardigans, jackets, and coats with different types of organizing solutions that will work for your organizing styles and spaces.

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Outerwear Organization

Before you start organizing your outerwear, I highly suggest editing your collection. You don’t want to purchase a bunch of organizing solutions to contain outerwear you’re not even going to wear. I share my clothing quantities to keep guidelines in my freebie library here. My guide helps you to determine how many of each clothing item to keep based on your lifestyle and how often you are able to do laundry. I also share tips for how to keep your closets from overflowing, yet always have something to wear, here.

The Best Hangers

Good quality coats can be a bit pricey. So, it’s a good idea to keep them in tip top shape for as long as possible. Since coats can be rather heavy, standard hangers can break due to their weight and also cause indentations in the shoulder areas. Any kind of heavier duty hanger like wooden hangers can be all that you need to keep your coats nicely stored (found here):

Storage for Small Spaces

Hefty winter coats take up so much space. So, in the smallest of spaces, you can organize outerwear and create coat storage by installing some hooks or rods depending on how many coats you have and how hefty they are. To keep a few coats readily available during the winter season, you can store them on hooks like these, in your closet or entryway, which fold back toward the wall when you don’t need them (found here):

A more permanent solution can be to add additional hanging space to a short wall in your closet (found here):

Proper Entryway Storage

Hooks are the easiest way to keep coats from being dropped on the floor or set on a table, chair, or couch after coming in from a cold day. The key thing to remember about storing coats on hooks is that these are temporary storage solutions. Entryway hooks are simply meant for you to have a quick drop zone to contain your coats, hats, bags, etc. when entering your home. Then, after you’ve settled in from being out, you can put your coats away properly so that they aren’t hanging in a crumpled state and being stretched from the neck/upper back for an extended period. Establishing this habit keeps you and your household from piling coats on coats on hooks essentially making them difficult to access. With all this in mind, let’s determine what types of hooks work best for you.

Wall hooks are great for conserving floor space and maximizing vertical space. Since hooks can be mundane, why not make them pretty by using hooks like these (found here):

If you don’t have wall space to spare, over-the-door hooks can be the ultimate space-saving solution (found here):

If your door won’t open properly with coats hung on the back, a simple coat rack like this one below is a great year-round solution (found here). They don’t take up much floor space and are handy for keeping not only your winter coats and accessories contained but also your purses and backpacks, etc.

For larger households, you can create a “mudroom” with a stand-alone all-inclusive rack like this one below. Or, if you don’t have a coat closet, this can become your “coat closet” if you use hangers to hang your coats on the rod at the top (found here):

Seasonal Storage Solutions

Depending on the size of your closets, you might need to switch your clothing out between seasons and store out of season clothing. Storage bags like these can be stored on a higher shelf in your closet or any storage area/closet in your home (found here):

You can also store longer out of season coats without folding them in longer storage bags that can be stored under your bed (found here):

To maximize storage weather you need to condense heftier coats or if you have a lot of people to store coats for, you can use vacuum-sealed bags. Some are even made for coats like these (found here):

If you just have a few coats you want to keep hanging in your closet year-round but want to protect them from dust, you can use garment bags like these (found here):

For larger families, you can set up an entire out of season closet in your garage or basement to contain all of your coats during warmer months and free up closet space in your bedrooms (found here):

I hope you found some ideas for how to organize your outerwear for your organizing style and/or the space that you have! In my next post, I share how to organize skirts. Don’t forget to grab my free resources from my freebie library here. Let’s get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

Happy Organizing!