Time for an All-Season Closet
Maybe it’s time to rethink the seasonal storage of clothes and move to an all-year-round closet and dresser. I don’t know about you, but the official start of the change-of-seasons clothes logjam has reached my bedroom. Last week, temperatures here in Northern Virginia fluctuated between 30 degrees and 80 degrees, so the growing clothing pile-up now consists of sweaters, cardigans, short-sleeved t-shirts and long-sleeved, lightweight shirts and, somewhere in there, a skirt or two. To add to the mess, I have an open bin of spring clothes I kept in the basement. The bin started out nicely packed, but now it looks like a tornado tore through it.
With each season change, I tell myself, as I clear up the log jam, that I won’t let this happen again. I expect that magic will occur and I will, EVERY TIME, put away my thick sweater from the morning chill as I change into the warm weather top for the afternoon. And the cleanup wand will wave again when I return for an evening cardigan or jacket. I’ll keep the storage box neatly packed and in my closet until I do the final big switch. I will. I swear I will.
Looking around my room, it’s clear that the magic did not take hold this year either. I can at least console myself that although there is a mess to be dealt with, it’s nothing like in past years before I discovered Marie Kondo and how to downsize. It’s obvious a new strategy is needed so I can get off this hamster wheel for good. The reality is our seasons here no longer have the hard stops and starts that we used to enjoy. We could count on sweater weather starting around Halloween and spring tops and dresses around Easter. It was easy to switch out my seasonal clothes and maybe leave out an “off-season” top or two just in case. For the last few years, weather patterns have been changing, so I need to change too.
Now for a new plan. What I’ve learned about decreasing clutter (and piles of clothes) is to have a home for every item. I’m realizing that having some of my clothes available in my room while others are stored elsewhere enables the buildup when the weather is shifting. Moving to a year-round closet and dresser offers an intuitive solution that, in theory, will make it much easier for me to find what I need quickly and put it away when I’m done. Keeping likes together, a key principle for the KonMari Method®, needs to shift from keeping seasons together to keeping all my clothes together.
Generally, I have a full dresser and a classic (i.e., inadequate!) bedroom closet for in-season clothes, and about eighteen inches of hanging items and three Ikea zipper bags for off-season clothes and shoes. How am I going to make this all fit while not being so crammed in I can’t pull anything out? Oh, I know the answer. I just don’t want to know it… especially since everything I have passed the joy check on my first go around. The solution to too much stuff is always the same -- it’s time to go back for another downsizing.
I’ll need to remind myself at the start of how great it will be to never have a clothing log jam again. And for that matter, I’ll get storage space back in my basement to boot! Then I’ll pull out my trusty notepad and map out a plan for where everything will go. This will give me parameters to keep in mind when deciding what and how much I can keep to make this work.
In my closet, most current items will go in front and be followed by the next season. It’s spring? Then the spring wardrobe leads the way, followed by summer, fall and winter. When the weather changes, stuff in front retreats to the back. I’ll also assign drawers for heavy to lightweight pieces as well. Because I’ll never be a minimalist, I will allow myself one “all-season” container for the things that are single-season use only, like snow pants or white skirts. A small container with drawers will work perfectly and can fit in my closet. (Or at least it will when I’m done!) No more storage boxes spilling out clothes in my room!
Given my limited space, the joy checking where I decide what to keep and what to toss must be ruthless for this to work, but I know I can do it. There’ll be some angst in the beginning, but the rewards in time saved, a clutter-free bedroom and even less laundry will definitely be worth it in the long run.
What do you think? Would an all-season closet help you?