Many people are faced with the task of storing off-season items in different areas of their home, or in storage units. MakeSpace Chief Organizing Officer, Jamie Hord, founder of Horderly Professional Organizing, has innovative tips and tricks to help you changeover your closet for the summer.
Whether you’re an apartment dweller or downsizing, sometimes it’s impossible to fit all of your clothes into one space.
These nine easy steps to change over your closet are intended for anyone, but consider bringing in professional support. A professional organizing company, like Horderly, can teach you how to fold your items in such a way to keep them structurally safe while maximizing bag or bin space for items headed to storage.
1. Pull out & sort
The first step in this process is to do a pull-out and sort of your clothing items. Sort items into piles based on category.
2. Edit
Next, edit each pile. Editing is the process of determining which items to keep, toss or donate. Keep two trash bags handy, one for garbage and one for donates!
3. Take inventory & separate by season
Once you’ve decluttered, take inventory of your clothing and accessories and determine if each item is something you use year-round or only something you wear during a certain time of the year.
4. Determine prime real estate
Squeezing four seasons worth of clothes into your closets and drawers can be a difficult task. Instead of trying to pack everything into your closet or drawers, place clothing for the current season in prime real estate—easily accessible areas.
5. Storing off-season at home
If you have extra storage space in your home, keep off-season items at the top of your closet, in the basement, garage or another area of your home with ample space.
Take your off-season clothes and file-fold them into bins. Horderly suggests file-folding clothing items into tiny, neat “packages” and filing clothing items into rows at the bottom of the bin. Once the entire bottom is filled with file-folded items, start a new layer of clothing on top of the first.
For more help on file-folding check out Horderly’s “Folding with Horderly” YouTube series, or contact Horderly to get help from a professional organizer!
6. Pack for storage
Space is a concern? Let MakeSpace take care of storing your items for you! MakeSpace provides bags that are designed to fit into MakeSpace storage bins. This makes pickups quicker and deliveries less-cluttered. MakeSpace will ship you the bags so you can pack them before pickup. These bags are perfect to put off-season items in.
Use MakeSpace storage bags and bins to separate categories and make unpacking easier! You can pack sweaters in one bag, pants in another and seasonal sports gear separately.
While packing off-season bags, consider storing—snow and winter boots, winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves. You can also store ski gear like helmets, boots, heavier sweaters and winter pajamas. If you have extra space in your bins, consider packing winter comforters and off-season holiday decor.
7. Label
Once items are sorted, folded and packed, don’t forget to label each bin. That way, you can easily determine what needs to be unpacked as the seasons change, and which can stay in storage.
8. Send it off
MakeSpace has partnered with Horderly to make seasonal closet swaps so much easier. Having these items out of your home will decrease the off-season clutter—thus increasing happiness. You’ll be less stressed knowing your home only has the current essentials you need in your life.
MakeSpace picks up and stores your items for safekeeping, and delivers them back to you whenever you want! Imagine never having to go to a storage unit again!
9. Swap closets (again)!
Scheduling pickups and deliveries is super easy with the MakeSpace app, complete with a photo inventory of your stored items. Horderly loves this feature for seasonal closet swaps. Click and select the seasonal items that you need to be delivered back to your home. You can then pack up different items and ship them to storage!
The key here is to only keep items in storage that you cherish or will need one day – avoid moving clutter back and forth! That’s why decluttering before storing is so crucial.
If you need a hand organizing your closets in-between seasons, let a Horderly professional organizer coach you through the process! Horderly’s organizers are experts in closet organization and will find the perfect spot for all your items whether you need to be dressed for snow or sand.
For more information on all things Horderly – including lots of great tips, tricks and other #HorderlyHabits – check out our blog or reach out for more information!
