Coming Out of the Coat Closet

August 14, 2009 in Home Ownership | View Comments

In part two of this week’s closet organization rampage, I decided to tackle the front coat closet.

The front coat closet functions not only as the front coat closet, but also as the storage spot for all of my table linens and seasonal decorative hand towels (yes, I have seasonal decorative hand towels– don’t think I can’t still beat you up, though), and the extension of the pantry (which is really just a tall kitchen cabinet), and as a makeshift utility closet. It has to work extra hard because I don’t have a linen closet or a utility room or a pantry. It’s also the magical doggie closet, where her leashes and food are stored.

So I did remember to take before pictures of this one:

Note how happy the doggie is that the magical closet has opened. She will soon find, however, that I have not opened it to take her on a walk, nor, sadly, to feed her. She will then sulk and refuse to look at me for the rest of the evening. It’s true. She does that.

Anyway, there are coats, yes, but there is also a plethora of other miscellaneous items, strewn around because some of it fell off a shelf a long time ago and I was in a hurry and didn’t pick it up and then stuff just kept piling on top and then stuff got lost underneath and then I would just shut the door as quickly as possible every time I opened it so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. Denial is sometimes better than organization.

Here’s more mess. I have some shelves in here, but they’re all at weird angles and they’re hard to get at. Also, the top left shelf is too tall for me to see, so I have to just feel around for whatever is up there. Scary when you really don’t know what’s up there.

I basically took everything but the coats out of the closet and sorted it into piles. I found lots of stuff I thought was lost: Swiffer sweeper replacements, dog poop bags, umbrellas, some freebie blankets (which I took back to the newly reorganized walk-in closet where all the extra blankets now live). And then I put it all back in, except better.

The top shelf that I can’t reach seemed like a good place to stack toilet paper. The problem I had with the placemats before is that the shelf was too narrow and they kept falling off, so I moved them to the wider shelf (der) and then folded the tableclothes so that they’re easy to grab and stacked them on top. I put the narrower hand towels on the narrow shelf.

The basket up there is full of winter gear: scarves, hats, gloves. We don’t wear that stuff much around here, so I’m not really sure what else to do with it, but if any of you have good winter gear organization tips, spill it. I did put some over-the-door hooks on the inside of the door so that I can hang the most frequently used hats and scarves there instead of rooting around in the basket for them every time.

I left a lot of stuff on the floor. There is an old tall laundry basket on wheels which I used to store the tall stuff: umbrellas, sweepers, long dusters. There are also 2 pallets of bottled water and, of course, dog food. I didn’t spend any money on this reorg, but the one place that could use some money spent would be the wall where the dog leashes are hanging. I’d rather have a nice set of hooks there instead of nails poking out of the drywall. I know, I’m so picky.