Tip of the Day #28

 For most of us, coat season is right around the corner. This would be the perfect time to get that coat closet cleaned out and a system set up.

When we lived in Alaska, we had an awesome mud room. Wow, I miss that mudroom. I had that thing organized like you wouldn’t believe. I had to in order to keep the comings and goings as less stressful as possible. Dressing 2 young kids in boots, gloves, coats, hats and sometime snow bibs is exhausting and that’s also a lot of clothes to keep us with!

Unfortunetely, I don’t have that wonderful mud room anymore and I also have an extremely small entry way, but I do have a closet. Oh what you can do with one closet!

So, for my tip of the day, here are some ideas about how to get your coat closet ready for the coming winter:

• Put a small bookshelf in the closet and assign each person their own container for hats, gloves and scarves. Label the container with each person’s name.
• Install hooks either on the wall of the entry way or the inside of the closet for coats. If you have kids, make a couple of them easy for them to reach.
• If you can’t or don’t want to install hooks, then hang adults’ coats on a higher rod and get a rod extender for the kids’ coats.
• Clean out the closet and put anything else that’s not coat related somewhere else, if you can. Get rid of coats that don’t fit anymore by donating them.
• Buy a shoe rack to store muddy, wet and snowy shoes on. You can put a small piece of plastic underneath the rack to catch the moisture.
• If you have the room, put a bench near the coat closet for everyone to sit down to put on and take off their boots. (I have a storage bench on my wish list!)

I love getting ready for each new season. When I start off organized, things around our house just flow much better. I hope this helps you get ready for winter!