My Tricks for an Organized Coat Closet

Hello there! Man, we are all on the struggle bus today. It's always such a shock to the system to head back to normal life after the lazy days of break. It seriously pains me to get up on these days. (I'm a late owl so it's always a struggle anyway.)

This weekend I focused on getting the house back in order, at least somewhat. Funny how we weren't even here most of last week but somehow when we return with suitcases every room seems to explode with stuff. I'm still working my way through categories of our home, using the Konmari method I told you about here. 

Since it looks like we'll finally have some consistent spring weather this week, I decided to tackle the coat closet next. I've shared this little space a few times over the years -- it's one of my hardest working spots in the house. It's funny because we have a lot of storage in this house, but not a lot of closet storage -- at least those that hold things other than clothes. :) I used one of our linen closets to create my son's book nook years ago so we now have one linen closet, a coat closet and a little space in the utility closet to store the day to day necessities. 

Like I said, this one works hard for us. I started by clearing everything out of it: 

This photo makes me laugh -- I still can't believe all of this fits in there. I'll show you how in a minute. :) 

The issue we've had is on the floor -- the winter boots usually get tossed down there and get jumbled into a big mess. Because I'm a bagger, the floor is my spot for those bags (notice only one that was down there this time! I'm getting better!) 

I have always kept the vacuum in this closet so that takes up floors space as well. So I put together a quick fix for the boots that helped tremendously: 

I grabbed two pieces of scrap wood (together the shelf is about 11 inches deep) and installed it with scraps of wood as brackets underneath. I attached those to studs where available (this is only holding shoes so it doesn't need to be crazy strong) and then placed the boards on top. 

HUGE help people! Usually the simplest solution is best: 

Because I had some extra space down there I brought up the carpet cleaner from the basement so it's easily accessible. I was able to move a few things around in our utility closet and place the vacuum in there -- I'm so stinking excited to have that thing out of here! Only took me 12 years to figure out a better spot for it. :) 

I went through all of the items in the closet -- we got rid of four coats/jackets and numerous hats, scarves and pairs of gloves. This cubby is one of my favorite organizational tools: 

This is the one I use. It allows me to store so much little stuff in this closet and they are easily accessible -- it's so nice in the winter to just grab a pair of gloves for the Bub when he's running out to the bus. I have each section labeled -- there's a row for each of us, one for winter stuff in general and then one for summer items. I keep extra sunscreen and bug spray in those. 

I have always kept small umbrellas and ponchos in here too, but I dawned on me that we only use those when traveling. I put larger umbrellas in the back of the closet and in our cars, but the smaller ones we only use when we travel to NYC. The ponchos are only used on Disney trips, so both of those items went up to the guest room dresser with the rest of our travel gear. It makes so much more sense to store them there.

In the winter our scarves hang on the top two hooks, but now the beach/pool bag takes their place for easy access: 

My son's bookbag hangs on the lower hook every day. Those are actually drapery hooks and they work great to hold tons of stuff! (See more about that here.) While I was at it, I washed all of our coats and winter gear too. 

Oh and yeah…I ran out of time when I painted that door forever ago and never did the inside. Ha! It's been like that for a long time now, who knows when I'll get to the inside: 

If you'd like to know how to make a similar mossy letter, check out this post. I found that cutie when cleaning out the basement a couple weeks ago and it's still in great shape! 

It's so nice to have this spot organized and cleaned up. I've come a long way in a couple years -- this closet used to be my dumping ground and it's not been nearly as bad lately. I pack a lot of storage into this little space! I'm just happy we won't need those coats again for a very long time! :) 

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