Enjoying Your Mornings and Get Out the Door Faster With These Coat Closet Organization Tips
When you were a kid, you probably waltzed into the house after a long day at school and haphazardly tossed your backpack aside, unzipped your jacket and cast it on the floor, and pushed your shoes off by doing the toe shove (no hands needed, thank you very much).
Then, a few minutes later, there probably came a resounding roar from the general direction of wherever your mom or dad happened to be at that moment...
“Hang your coat up in the closet!!!”
Now you are an adult, and perhaps you are good about hanging your stuff up. Or maybe your clutter has migrated over to the couch. Either way, your parents were on to something.
Your Parents Were Right. An organized coat closet isn’t just another household task. It’s important.
Decluttering makes you a better person. That’s right. It makes you less stressed and more productive. Studies have shown a direct correlation between cortisol (aka the stress hormone) and messiness. Less mess, less cortisol, a happier you.
So the best stress reduction move you can make today might just be a bit of old-fashioned coat closet organization. Luckily, the following tips take no time at all to do, but they save you just enough time in the morning to enjoy that second cup of coffee.
1. Keep often-used items within easy reach with a wall organizer, and save hours of time.
Americans spend an average of 2.5 days per year searching for lost items. The top offenders include remote controls, phones, car keys, glasses, shoes, wallets, and purses.
Enter the entryway superhero, a wall organizer. Once upon a time, wall organizers were somewhat ugly little doo-dads that usually came in terrible color options and were made of plastic. But now, you can find a beautiful array of wall organizers that comes in all kinds of natural materials and styles, not to mention ones that get incredibly creative with cubbies, hooks, and pockets for just about anything you can imagine. You can add them to your closet door itself (inside or out) or hang them next to the closet.
Consider them your front door’s favorite new accessory.
2. Prevent hanger slips and slides with CatTongue Non-Abrasive Grip Tape (and reduce landfill waste).
There’s nothing quite like purchasing the perfect jacket, the one that seems to miraculously go with all of your outfits and is worth paying a small fortune for.
Then, the dreaded occurs. You open your closet door to see that someone, in the process of taking out their own jacket, haphazardly disturbed your favorite coat. It has slipped off the hanger and toppled to the floor. Now crumpled up in the midst of a no-man’s land of muddy boots, your favorite jacket is not only wrinkled, it’s stained.
Keep your favorite items where they belong (hanging up and not on the floor) with our Gription® Roll. Just stick a bit of the grip tape onto the hanger itself, and never have your clothes slip off again. Not only will you save your fabrics, but you’ll also save the insanity that comes from having to do the annoying ritual of re-hanging up all that stuff that constantly slips off.
We love this idea because not only is it practical, but at CatTongue Grips, we love eco-friendly solutions (which is why our Gription® Roll is recyclable). As this BBC article put it, plastic hangers are the “plastic straw of the fashion industry,” and we would love to prevent another batch of them from ending up in a landfill. So don’t replace your hangers. Just add a bit of non-slip grip tape instead.
3. Keep that shoe area dirt-free and easier to clean with an area rug.
Here’s a fun exercise you can do if you’re ever feeling bored. Take all of the shoes out of the closet and witness all the dust and dirt accumulated there since the last time you cleaned.
Let’s be honest, even a strong vacuum can’t get all of that dirt out. And who wants to spend their time on their hands and knees spot-checking all of that caked-on dirt?
An area rug in your coat closet can be a time-saver. Simply take it out and toss it in the laundry whenever you need a refresh. Worried about rug slippage with all the in-and-out action of winter boots and soccer shoes? Place a few Gription® Rolls on the bottom and keep your carpet firmly in place.
4. Make use of every inch of space.
That extra few inches of white wall between the closet door and where the clothes hang is an under-utilized piece of real estate when it comes to coat closet organization. Add a hook or two there, and voila! You have a handy dandy storage space for that umbrella, that scarf, or other accessories that take up narrow spaces but don’t seem to fit in anywhere else. Say, for example, those face masks that have become such an everyday part of your wardrobe?
5. With this coat closet organization tip, you’ll never be a basket (case) again.
Baskets are one of those things that are never overrated. They carry things, they store things, they organize things. They keep stinky, dirty shoes separated from nicer evening wear shoes. They compartmentalize.
But for this coat closet organization tip to truly work, you can’t use just any old basket you have laying around (no, your laundry basket is NOT the correct choice here) and jam it in your closet at awkward angles. To conserve space and truly make things look Insta-perfect, you’ll want to measure your space. Truly think about how you can use baskets as drawers and containers. Then shop for the perfect baskets in the correct dimensions.
It’s so simple, yet it’s one of those easy organization hacks that a lot of people don’t bother to do. A basket or two in the correct size, and you’ll have containers for all those mittens, toys, shoes, socks, and all that other miscellaneous clutter.
This coat closet organization tip is also a good one because shopping for baskets can be half the fun. You can choose from unicorn patterns or outer space patterns, florals that match your couch cushions (can we say cohesive decor theme?), or maybe even let your kids (if kids are part of your overall clutter challenge) pick out the basket they love the most. With any luck, they might be more likely to keep things tidy!
So, that’s our round-up of do-it-yourself closet organization ideas. One more thing, while you are going about cleaning out that closet…
Now might be a good time to reduce your clutter altogether. Consider putting aside items you rarely use and donating them to a local non-profit organization. Not only do you free up space and reduce clutter, but you help someone else in need. A win-win!