Your Closet & Wardrobe Management

[MaryDeluxe]

Lela!

Elaina.... It does make a lot of sense if a gal has the extra room and is minus a significant other or child!

 

[swingkitten85]

I have a tiny 2 bedroom house....close to 1,000 square feet, give or take of living space. The second bedroom is very small so it became my walk in closet/dressing room. When you live alone and have no children you can do crazy things like that!!! It works very well for me and it's like having a master suite.

WOWZA! This is exactly what I dream of doing one day! Probably won't happen (since my husband and I plan on having kids), but still a girl can daydream. lol!

 

[Elaina]

Mary it would make sense having a significant other.

One day I plan on doing this.lol It would keep me from ever being offered to one of the gazillion siblings and their kids for a place to stay.

 

[NicknNora]

Huge Closet!

My friend Nathan recently bought a house built in 1909. He has remade an entire (large) bedroom into a "closet" for his vintage clothing collection. The walls have two levels of hanging bars, one above the other. In addition, the room has two walk-in closets of its own, not to mention 6 rolling racks occupying the floor space.

Understand that this man has more than 60 vintage suits. He has to put them somewhere!

.

That's my dream to turn a bedroom into a huge walk-in closet complete with my huge vintage leather white ottoman that I'll use to sit on while putting on my stockings and shoes. Right now we live in a smaller older home with small closets. I gave Nick our bedroom closet and the wardrobe for his things. I use a closet in the spare bedroom in the basement and I have most of my things hanging up in the laundry room on 4 overhead pipes that were installed specifically for clothes. I also have a chest of drawers that I use. I've gained about 15 pounds and until I lose the weight I have too many clothes of various sizes. I've lost 5 pounds so when I finally get rid of the other 10 the bigger sizes will have to go. I also keep my vintage separate from my regular everyday stuff although there are certain crossover pieces that sometimes float between the two areas!lol

 

[The Shirt]

I too have too many clothes. I live alone - but have to keep my spare bedrrom for visitors. Otherwise - I'd love to do what Mary has done! I currently take up my closet, the spare closet, a trunk, 3 large sets of drawers, a coat rack and I have a unit in the basement for things I don't wear much but cannot part with and coats that are out of season. I counted 27 coats a few months back. It's sad. And don't get me started on handbags. I think it's because I vary in my weight so much - fluxing between 4 different sizes every 2 years or so. I've invested so much in my wardrobe that I have a hard time giving things up. You all must convince me to purge!

I'll be moving in with my fella come spring and I cringe at the thought of closet space there. Luckily he only needs a couple of drawers to keep him happy. How can a man live with only 2 pairs of shoes!

 

[kamikat]

OMG! I am so jealous of all you ladies! After I lost weight, I got rid of all my clothes. Then I gained most of it back and gave away most of my skinny clothes. Right now, I have 2 dresses, 2 skirts, 1 blouse, a bunch of t-shirts and 1 pair of shorts to my name.

 

[MaryDeluxe]

Elaina...Maybe some day I will have a husband and even then I will demand my own dressing room!

Jenny The Shirt....Oh I remember you have that great wall of hanging purses! I loved how you did that...a great way to store them and easy access to em. I have gotten rid of lots of clothing over the years as I have gone down in size. I figure I will sell it put the money in my vintage clothing and accessories account and then build again! I've been really trying to simplify my life and purge it of crap I don't use! I was reading this blog and thought she had a great idea regarding the clothes in her closet....97 things to do before you turn 97.

 

[La Julia]

Just a word of warning about these types that can be adjusted in height and are partially plastic: if you overload them, they collapse quite easily! Trust me, I know. haha!

I'm really enjoying this thread and reading about and seeing how everyone stores their clothing and such. I don't have anything spectacular right now as I'm sharing a closet with my husband (he's military and has a million and one different uniforms and various accessories he has to store in there). The only saving grace is that I snagged two of those plastic drawer bins and stacked them on top of each other in the closet. That works as my temporary chest of drawers right now. Until I find something more sturdy and suitable in the future. Otherwise, everything is packed in on my side and shoes stacked on boxes! I really need to get the clutter under control... lol!

oh, my that happend to me the other day.
I got upset, but what did I really except being plastic

 

[Lorena B]

Elaina...Maybe some day I will have a husband and even then I will demand my own dressing room!

Jenny The Shirt....Oh I remember you have that great wall of hanging purses! I loved how you did that...a great way to store them and easy access to em. I have gotten rid of lots of clothing over the years as I have gone down in size. I figure I will sell it put the money in my vintage clothing and accessories account and then build again! I've been really trying to simplify my life and purge it of crap I don't use! I was reading this blog and thought she had a great idea regarding the clothes in her closet....97 things to do before you turn 97.

I have tried this a few times and man, i am agree, it still doesnt stop wanting & getting new clothes and in result, smaller closet:eusa_doh:

 

[hailey greenhat]

Its become apparent that everyone here really loves clothing and wants the "dressing room" that only one of us has
but hooray to Mary for living the dream :eusa_clap

 

[Miss Sis]

We've just moved from a rented three bedroom house to our own first home which is two bedrooms and a proper loft.

In the old house, the largest bedroom was our dressing room with the already huge built in wardrobe down one side of the room and the other side we put two large deco wardrobes. Also the matching dressing table which went inbetween. It was perfect (both myself and the BF have a LOT of vintage clothes) Everyone said it was great to have a separate room for it all.

Here's a peek inside one of the BF's wardrobes:

BUT we still had my drawers in the littlest bedroom and the BF had some of his other clothes in a cupboard in our bedroom, and we had extra things on a rail in the loft! Lesson: there is never enough space for all your things!

In the new house it will be a similar arrangement - the spare room will be the dressing room. Have to rearrange the wardrobe space once we've worked out the best way. The built in ones aren't a good use of space having next to no actual rails. Until then it's two huge industrial rails up in the loft.

 

[Penny Dreadful]

I have a big thing for clothes, and have kept a lot over the years, but my closet is TINY. So I bought a wardrobe and keep the things I wear and like the most in it, separated by type. I keep them from dresses on the left (the most easily accessible side) which I wear the most often, then skirts, tops (again divided by type) and finally pants over on the right because I only wear pants when I absolutely have to. It also has a row of shelves down the side where I keep my corsets, slips and other shapewear, and stockings. I'm trying to get baskets to put them in so they're not just sitting loose in the shelves. The more formal or weird stuff or anything that just doesn't make it into my regular circulation goes into the old cave-closet with a bunch of other junk in the way to trip over. This closet is getting pretty packed and I don't think I could fit anything else in it. I keep cardigans, robes, towels and belts hanging from hooks in the closet door, and I really do need to get more hooks! Then I keep my socks, underwear, and pajamas in my dresser. I've found it convenient to keep anything I'm willing to give away in an overflowing laundry basket on a little table in my room. This way it doesn't clog the closets even more, and when friends come over I let them have at it It's an especially good arrangement since all the girls I associate with make a habit of giving each other clothes fairly often.
As for my shoes (I keep remembering more and more things, it's everywhere!) I keep the ones I don't wear often in a large 1930s trunk in the dining room. The ones I wear regularly sit on a rack in the front hall. A coat rack holds the seasonal coats, hats, and purses, the out-of-season stuff hangs on hooks down the hall.
Ok, I THINK that's everything. Phew!

 

[RockyHorror]

At my parents house it was one side of the closet for vintage and the other for modern clothes, but both sides were color coordinated. I had a hanging shelf thing for jeans and things that didn't wrinkle, and a chest of drawers with a drawer each for long sleeved shirts, sleeveless shirts, underwear and pajamas.
Now I have a tiny tiny closet that i can only access half of very easily, and a lack of hangers, so i color coordinate- all the yellow dresses that can fit will go on one hanger, and the same with the black and etc. Seasonal clothes and shoes are stored under the bed. My drawers are still divided in the same way. Sweaters hang on the back of my door, and i have a scarf holder hanging on my wall that houses my belts, necklaces and scarves.

 

[Tatum]

When we bought our current home, a 1920s Craftsman, we had a few design challenges: one upstairs bathroom and tiny closets in four bedrooms (one being a trunk closet)! I bemoaned the loss of a bathtub when we remodeled the bathroom, so hubby came up with a great solution. We converted the smallest bedroom into what we call my dressing room; it is the one with the trunk closet and is next to the bathroom. We put a clawfoot tub and a funky Ikea trough-style sink/vanity in it, along with an antique dressing table, armoire and cedar chest. Vintage clothes and the stuff I wear all the time live in the armoire and the drawers of the vanity and the things that are not worn so often are in the trunk closet, as it is high in the wall and hard for the vertically challenged (me!) to get to. I did just pick up an ugly little steamer trunk for shoes, I can climb on it to get to the trunk closet now!

 

[KittyT]

There's another thread here on organization that has some interesting ideas in it. Maybe these threads should be merged?

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?27117