Suz, yes, organization can be tougher than it seems. Thanks for understanding, and I'm waving to my closed storage sister!

Runcarla, that's a great idea. I've never been successful in the past at planning outfits weekly but it holds a lot of appeal for me. Maybe thinking a bit more about when to work it in to my schedule, will help, as well as the realization that after much analysis this is the best solution so I HAVE to make time for it. I like the idea of using photos somehow too.

Adding pics of beautiful Crater Lake, Oregon because anyone who has made it through this thread deserves some loveliness!

Thanks for the share ❤️!

This won’t be helpful, but when I worked, my wardrobe was so small that everything fit in my half of an eight foot closet. We have since remodeled and the closet is all mine. I have more clothes now, though. and they don’t all fit. Mainly I have more casual clothes. I store some things in the spare room closet. If part of the problem is your husband zooming where you store your clothes, how about he zooms somewhere else? For example, I zoom at the dining room table.

Ok, I admit that I currently have a full dressing room with multiple closets and a built-in dresser but I promise this was not always the case. Some veteran YLFers will recall my 1925 house that had small rooms with smaller closets. One thing that helped me was that my bed was this one. I used some of the baskets for things like jeans (and one for Mr. A's things when he would visit on weekends.)

I also put a plastic craft-drawer-organizer in a corner of the bedroom closet to hold things like socks, tights, etc. Labels on the drawers because I would get dressed in the dark all winter and didn't want to show up at work in brown that I thought was black, etc.

Command hooks on the closet wall held handbags.

Much like your bedpost situation, it was a constant battle to avoid having clothes piled on the single armchair in the corner of the bedroom.

If you have a tiny amount of wall space for one of these, https://www.amazon.com/Folding.....s-sl-shopp they are quite useful for assembling outfits ahead of time, for hanging dry cleaning that you want to wear again right away, and so on. When there's nothing hanging there, you can swing the arm flush with the wall.

Not sure about you, but for lazy me, having a clean outfit assembled and hung up would help me resist the temptation to do bedpost dressing.

I hear you on the closet limitations. It is certainly a challenge! And no wonder some clothes are forgotten when they live two floors apart.

My first thought is a re-org. Not new retail solutions, but a shuffle of dh clothes and yours. Could you separate the pax units and put one in the office closet for him? Freeing up the space where his pax is might allow you one (or two) - top/bottom rail for hanging things

To Carla’s point, planning ahead could help - maybe a small, telescoping valet rod or mountable valet pin in your current closet would allow you to hang things closer to your “bedpost” and help when feeling lazy. You wouldn’t need a giant rack; just a place to hang a day or two of hanging items.

https://www.wayfair.com/RevASh.....F1573.html

https://mobile.kitchensource.c.....805.12.358

When i had one tiny closet in our bedroom and had already taken over most of my young son's closet, I relied on over the door hangers (on both sides) and sturdy hooks everywhere. I bought them at Anthro so they were visually appealing too.

Even now, when I have a roomy closet and a smaller wardrobe (retired), I rely on those two elements. I hang nearly dry dresses and tops to fully dry, garments that i haven't worn in too long as a reminder, scarves that would otherwise be forgotten, masks, robes, you name it. And those pull out rods in my closet are the BEST thing.

So I am recommending cute hardware.

Thanks for the kind words, Runcarla!

JAileen, Crater Lake was fantastic! Well worth the trip and the strenuous hike down to/up from the lake. We didn’t see much bird life (though we are not experts) but the cutest, boldest ground squirrels ever hang out at the lakeshore and the plant life was really cool (I am sparing you all my nerdy botany photos).

I appreciate everyone’s suggestions that involve changing my husband’s clothing storage. Clothing is often not just about clothing and that principle is at play here; I have a tendency to try to be “invisible” and meet my own needs by working around others’, and I am aware of playing out that pattern in this discussion. Still, in the final analysis I think it’s more important to me and to our family that my husband and I both have defined, functional spaces in which to work than it is that I have a dressing room/unified clothing storage/etc. So, to that point, Mr. can’t zoom at the dining table because that would interfere with *my* work space!

April yes, it’s sort of like organizing— it has to be just as easy for me to wear a new outfit as a bedpost one, in the same way that in order to keep tidy it has to be as easy to put an item away as it is to leave it out. Thanks to both you and nemosmom for the valet rod suggestions!

Nemosmom alas — the closet in the office is under the stairs so it’s not full height, and can’t accommodate a pax wardrobe. (I think the opening is too narrow too, plus we need access to the Alice-in-wonderland depths of the closet for storage).

Roberta as a matter of fact the hook I had pulled out to possibly hang on the wall is from Anthropologie! So I am right there with you on cute hardware, that’s good advice.

Not saying you want to do this, just being mischievous…. https://designsixtynine.co.uk/.....rawer-diy/

If hubs doesn’t want to move stuff (although his stuff in his office might totally make sense), then I vote weekly capsules in your “expanded bedpost”/staging area above the litter box.

SF people do get up to some schemes, don’t they? I think IKEA now (or did in the recent past) has a line of storage furniture that is designed in stair-step fashion to create a custom look in rooms with sloping ceilings.

You mean Trofast?

No, I remember it being closed storage.

Platsa, maybe. Seems to only be available in Europe, or at least not on the US site:

https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/cat.....eem-37894/

A lot of my stuff I roll up into little cylinders and just stack them like cord wood on a shelf.

A happy update! I purchased the valet hook for my IKEA wardrobe that lyn67 mentioned. My husband installed it this morning, as well as a set of peg hooks I had previously purchased. Pics below.

I am THRILLED with the result. I haven't truly put the system through its paces yet but am very optimistic that this will improve things significantly for me.

The idea is that the valet hook will be a place where I can stash hanging clothes that I bring up from the downstairs closet on a weekly-ish basis. So I don't have to run up and down the stairs constantly, and if I want to play with a few different possibilities I have a place to stash a few hangers.

The peg rail is a spot where I can stash my jammies/loungewear and hang clothes for airing after wearing them. I had my husband hang it quite high up so that I can hang long garments without interfering with my clothes hamper underneath.

Thanks to the forum for talking this through with me and helping me find a solution!

That looks excellent! Probably a better spot for it than my idea of above the kitty litter, peeyou.

Congrats! But have you made an allowance for weight gain/extra inches from not running up and down those stairs all the time? <gr>

SF indeed. I did just add a bag of activated charcoal to the kitty corner but there's only so much I can expect that to do!

DonnaF ha! I hope not! The truth is I wasn't running up and down the stairs much anyway...this discussion did sort of shake me out of my dressing doldrums and prompted me to play in both of my closets but prior to that I just...really wasn't wearing my hanging clothes. I have been doing lots of organizing and rearranging this weekend so there has been PLENTY of running up and down stairs at least for the last couple of days!

That looks great! Glad you were able to solve the problem.

Good stuff! I think you’ll really like them. I have almost the same setup for my deep, narrow ancient closets - pegs and valet hooks, ‘cept my valet hooks are over-door waterfall hangers. (I’m afraid of putting holes in the ancient plaster and bringing the wall down, lol )

All my folded clothes are stacked in tiny shoeboxes lol, since I have no chest of drawers here nor the capacity to install any (am renting). I have labels on them & rotate them to the front vs back of the closet according to the season. My pyjamas/ lounge clothes are in plastic bins on top of the cupboard (no space inside the closet!)

As for planning, I think I posted a photo here once of how I have hooks on the back of the door for my week's outfits/ PJ's - if something doesn't need washing after a wear (which is rare in this subtropical summer humidity, TMI lol sorry!) then I usually move it to the next hook to rewear at some point during the week (I try to let the clothes 'breathe' a bit between wears).

TL;DR: I use hooks instead of bedposts

Plus having a set colour scheme helps to get everything to easily mix & match without too much thought - moving out all my black clothes has made my dressing decisions sooo much quicker now!

Thanks Suz! Rachylou and Zaeobi, waving to my fellow Sisters of Perpetual Quirky Clothing Storage. Interesting how we seem to have hit upon similar solutions— especially in terms of function, though the details may differ.

Another thing I'd recommend is to think about how you prefer to get dressed - do you tend to build your outfits around your tops, scarves or shoes (for example)?

Whichever item is your outfit 'leader', you should make sure THAT'S what has the most prominent/ easy-to-reach spot in your storage - my bottoms, for example, are rolled into my shoeboxes, because they're usually neutrals that I pull on just so I'm not at risk of indecent exposure lol (the outfit 'followers', as it were - yes, my trousers are lemmings hah).