Seasonal Closet Changes

Photo Source: Dan Gold on Unsplash

Seasonal clothing transitions from winter to spring require washing, mending, repairing, and storing winter clothing, boots and accessories; and washing, mending, repairing and preparing clothing for spring and summer (because you didn't do it when you packed your summer things away). Overwhelming is a good word.

I'm a big proponent of small steps. I chose to do all my sweaters over a week because I wanted to wash them by hand. When they were dry I rolled them and put them in drawers in a spare bedroom. All the scarves, mittens and gloves were taken from the front entry closet and placed in one of the drawers in that same chest. Pick a category of clothing and commit to getting all of it put away and soon you will have gathered up and organized your summer clothing while putting away your winter things.

Cleaning: 

Make sure they're clean. This may mean handwashing wool and cashmere sweaters, scarves, and mittens; drycleaning wool suits and blazers, and cleaning and polishing boots. 

Mending & Repairing: 

There's no sense in putting something in storage and then taking it out the next season and finding it's unwearable. Mend it and if it's unrepairable, discard it. If you can't wear it and it can't be mended, no one else is going to want it. Check the heels of your boots for wear and tear. Get them re-soled or re-heeled with new heel tips now so that they are ready to wear when winter comes.

Photo Source: Nathan Oakley on Unsplash

Storing: 

Depending upon your space, this can be tricky. Storage is often a problem and the luxury of having a spare bedroom with an empty closet isn't available to everyone. A friend who lives in a 500 square foot condo, stores her sweaters in a large suitcase. She tucks in two or three unscented dryer sheets that she sprinkles with lavender essential oil between the sweaters and keeps the suitcase under the bed. Vacuum storage garment bags work as well. These can also be piled on high, hard-to-reach shelves while waiting for the next season. "Storage" furniture that doubles as seating (ottomans and benches) is another option. 

What's your storage strategy for off-season clothing and footwear?

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So Many Pairs of Shoes, So Little Space

Closet Analysis: Choose the Right Tools

For those of us who have more pairs of shoes than is reasonable, this post is for you. For those like my husband, who has six pairs of shoes — a pair of Geox black leather loafers, a second pair of same style Geox caramel beige leather loafers, a pair of running shoes, a pair of leather sandals, a pair of Merril sandals, and a pair of Oxfords — don't bother reading this post.

Brian Davis, my ballet flats guru, tells me that he kept his Keds in their original boxes for years. "But as more and more pairs were added I realized I don't have enough room. My Keds are stored in the plastic tubs with no real organization method at all (embarrassing I know). I have several of these plastic tubs with Keds in them."
We've all been there, done that and many of us are still there, doing that.
He did tell me that his brand new vintage 
Keds are kept in their original boxes in a closet as are his Puma flats and sports flats and his Michael Kors flats are in a trunk in a spare rooom. The spare room and extra closets have become his shoe repositories.
Now where are his Tieks and his Tory's?
Brian tells us, "My Tory's are the most organized of all my ballet flats.  I keep them in what I refer to as "The Tory Vault."
I recognize a couple of "what looks like Tory boot boxes" at the bottom of that closet.
Even though Tieks are his newest ballet flats passion, they are the most unorganized, according to Brian. Tieks come folded in half in a tiny blue box but Brian has an issue with the presentation. "Since it drives me nuts to see them folded in half like that, I don't store them in the original box." 

Here's what they look like freshly unpacked. Yes, these cute flats came out of that little box! 

Thank you Brian for the providing the reveal through your photographs. You are braver than I!
There are so many alternatives out there to organize your shoes and I'm sure you will be able to add another idea or two to the list that follows. 

Necessary: Now, let's take a look at what tools are available out there for shoe organization:

Nice: The only advantage clear plastic shoe boxes offer over the original cardboard box is that you can more readily find what you are looking for. They still take up a lot of space but if you want to invest the money (around $2.00/box or so), the plastic shoebox is a good option —stackable, easy to label, and transparent. When you no longer need them, they can be used to store something else. Original cardboard boxes don't hold up and vary in size thereby making it difficult to stack properly. The problem is, if you are like me, you haven't kept the boxes. If you like the idea of the transparent alternative, you will also like the "heeled" shoeboxes that come in three different height sizes.

Noteworthy: Then there are all forms of . . . 

Boot Hangers and Boot Racks

Hanging Shoe Shelves

Over-the-Door-Shoe-Bags or Racks I personally don't like things hanging on my doors. Opening and closing doors with stuff on them just doesn't cut it for me. If it's a good idea for you, choose one with clear pockets making it easier to identify the shoes you want to wear.

Cubby Shoe Organizers or Shoe Cabinets Some shoe cabinets are combined shoe cabinet/storage benches or shoe ottomans that look like a piece of furniture

Under the Bed Shoe Organizers For the shoes you don't wear on a regular basis. No Thanks. I like to see what I have. 

Floor Placement Shoe Racks That's what I have right now and it serves the purpose in the space I have allotted for them. My shoes are visible, on the floor beneath my hanging clothes, and easily accessible. Those shoes I don't wear often are in cloth bags piled in a corner shelf and this is a No Thanks for me.

Tiered Shoe Shelves/Racks multiple shelves high, shoe shelves can vary in size, from 6 pairs to 48 pairs — the more shoes it accommodates, the higher the shelf. Made of wood, bamboo, plastic, or chrome-plated steel. 

 

Nicer & Noteworthy: Shoe Slots/ Shoe Space-Savers

I found this photo of the shoe slots on eBay. I love the design and can imagine my shoes organized in this way. Unfortunately, I don't have any open shelving in my closet. It just might be worth giving up some of my hanger space for a narrow shelving unit. But for now, I'll put up with my floor placement shoe rack.

If you are lucky, you may have built-in shelving in your closet. I can imagine shoe slots in the shelving on the right side of this closet. Where two pairs of shoes lay, 5 pairs could be accommodated with shoe slots. 

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Finding shoe organizers for 6 to 12 pairs is fairly easy. If you want something for 48 pairs, the best strategy is to start your search, be patient, but you will eventually find them online.

Or if you need a guide on the side to help you de-clutter and organize, check out my latest project in collaboration with Janet Parkinson, an interior consultant, and owner of Changing Spaces by Design.

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Your Personal De-Cluttering Guide

Necessary: It's time for spring cleaning — or just general de-cluttering. 

The following strategy is all about "how to do anything better". It can be called "time management" or "organizational development" or "solving management problems" but in this case, it's simply how to get your closets and drawers organized.

Statistics Canada tells us that 2/3 of the population considers themselves stressed and theories abound that a cluttered environment at work and at home increases everyday living stress. Too much to do, too little time. Self-help books are out there and helpful — everything from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff to Awaken the Giant Within. All of them deal with the issue of putting first things first and just doing it.

Whenever you face a "spring cleaning" dilemma, the Nike slogan needs to be first in your mind, "Just do it!" Often the response after this command is "but . . . " The "but" statement comes from how you perceive yourself. If you see yourself as disorganized, you will continually perpetuate this state. It's called self-fulfilling prophecy. "That's just the way I am," can apparently be changed through your own self-talk to "I take pleasure in keeping my life organized." An organized perception or state affects how you approach even the mundane.

Noteworthy: More to the point of this blog post, Do you open your closet door, find only one shoe, and have to take out 15 other shoes before you find the match, close the door and promise to get to it  . . . tomorrow and tomorrow never comes? Underlying any behavior is the "pain and pleasure" principle — if something brings you enough pain, you are likely to change it so that it becomes more pleasurable. Therefore, the only reason you haven't organized your shoes is that there may not be enough pain associated with looking for the errant shoe. Alrighty then. Depending on how much pain or stress you are experiencing will depend on whether you want to keep reading or not.

Nice: The three principles to getting anything done are:

1. Set Achievable Goals: Divide the work into small tasks and get rid of that overwhelming feeling. Years ago, I began by breaking spring cleaning or de-cluttering into small, manageable tasks. My solution was to deal with one shelf or one drawer or one file folder, a container, a box, even one pocket, anything, but it had to be one something, which had to get cleaned, sorted, organized, or put away each day. It worked. In fact, I collaborated with Janet Parkinson at Changing Spaces by Design and wrote A Box A Day: A 30 Day Journal to Triumph over Clutter. With a place for everything, it's easier to put everything in its place. 

It really does work. I put my stuff in order, found stuff I had forgotten I owned and got rid of stuff I no longer need . . . The result: I know what I have and where to find it. Amazing!

— Shirley B, Canada

2. Believe in yourself, believe you can do it. If you don't believe you have the ability to do one something every day, then take action to achieve the skills you need. Many tools exist and yes, forgive me for blatant self-promotion, A Box a Day is a guided journaling tool that will get you started and believing in your ability to get it done. Daily affirmations get you into the habit of believing in yourself: I am efficient at making decisions to help me de-clutter.

3. Commit and Take Action. It's not hard work; it's not good luck. All you have to do is commit a length of time, even if it's only 10 minutes, to a "box" that can be accomplished in that amount of time, and do it every day. You can also break it down further into categories — but again, sort only one something, your shoes, your winter boots, scarves (winter/summer), only one category. Don't get carried away. You set the limits and commit to doing it. 

These mundane tasks, the little things, will result in a solution. Doing it for 30 days may even get you into the habit so that a "box" a day becomes a pattern for life.

Start Today and Click Here to Visit the Launch Page for

A Box a Day: A 30-Day Journal to Triumph Over Clutter 

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"Armoire" Content Analysis

Closet Choices: Armoires

Closet Content Analysis: Bed Linens

NECESSARY      NEED       NICE

Armoire. Dordogne, France.
Photo by JoyD.

I'm still thinking about better use of my "closet" space. It is not so much closets in homes in France but armoires. I don't have enough and so I have had to make do as you have seen in my August post. The two armoires I do have in my home are not filled with clothing fashion but rather with the linens I need for my baths and bedrooms.

For the most part, this armoire does not house many of our clothes. It is the only significant piece of furniture in the master bedroom and the bed linens for this room are in this armoire along with all the other small personal stuff one needs in their bedroom.

Armoire. Dordogne, France.
Photo by JoyD.

The second armoire is in the second guest bedroom and in it are all the bed and bath linens for guests and the rest of the house as well as storage for the winter duvets which need loads of room.

This armoire should actually be on the second floor foyer/landing; however it is extremely heavy and one of the back legs is broken so it would be a precarious undertaking to move it. 

NEED: an armoire for the premiere étage landing (2nd floor in North America).

Vintage monogrammed French linen topsheet.
Photo by JoyD.

NICE: Whereas many French love colour and new fashionable bedsheets, it seems that the foreigners who live here prefer the old linens. The vintage bedding requires work - there are not many who "enjoy" ironing so much so that they take the time to iron sheets. A friend of mine who lives near Lyons told me of a woman who was cleaning out her mother's house and put all the old linens in the recycle bin. It makes me shudder. I have had the good fortune to buy several vintage embroidered sheets. I am thrilled to be sleeping under pure linen sheets embroidered by someone in the past. What pride they must have taken in their creations. Mind, I do love my contemporary Yves Delorme bed sets and I have taken to mixing and matching old and new.

What I have done for my bedrooms, or am in the course of doing, is decorate in the colour scheme of sea, sand and sky - essentially blue, beige and white. It has made shopping easy so that if I find a bargain at the vides greniers, brocantes or something on sale at the Yves Delorme store I know I will be able to interchange old and new if I stay within my "sea, sand and sky" colour palette. That being said, there is a great variation in blues and beiges. 

Insofar as monograms go, I am becoming more particular. When I first began buying ancient linens, I did not care what monogram was on the sheets and so I have ER, SM, BD, LB, CG and others but not much in my or my husband's "initial" combinations. Now that I have a reasonable stash of linens, I have begun looking for specific monograms illustrating friends' and families' initials. This has become a challenge.

As one who learned to embroider from my mother, I cannot imagine doing what was accomplished on these vintage linens. I learned because my mother taught me, not because I necessarily wanted to. Mind you, through my experiences, I realize the amount of dedication, persistence and talent it takes to do something like this top bedsheet. What is special here is that it is also pure linen.

Distressed white on blue headboard from an old shutter.
Photo by JoyD. September, 2014.

We have guests from Canada coming in October and one is taking the transatlantic voyage via the Queen Elizabeth II. My husband suggested that we use the blue embroidered ER sheets for him and his wife. I just may do that.

The original motivation for taking this photo was to show my "distressed" shutter that was repurposed into a headboard for a 160 cm mattress in our guest room. A little sanding and a little paint coupled with a husband who can use a drill and voila, a headboard. 

The blue guest room with vintage French linen topsheet.
Photo by JoyD. October, 2014.

I love the armoires and linens in France. In these two household necessities, there is a "something" that I cannot achieve in my home in Canada.

Re-Purposing for Storage

NICE: Another Place to Hang a Few Things

I am much more the "re-use, re-purpose, re-do kind of gal" in France than I am in Canada. The base products (chairs, bookcases, armoires, wooden oxen harnesses, tables of all sizes and purposes, church furnishings) are more interesting; there are more opportunities to buy old stuff; and the re-furbishing products, if needed, are more accessible. 

I am amazed at the number of products available in the "brico" (hardware store) for restoring and recreating. I digress for a moment . . . but I believe that you can buy every type of light bulb created, since Edison and his cohorts at Menlo Park. We live in an old house and one particular light fixture needed a new bulb. Never did I think that we would find it. We didn't go anywhere special - just to our neighbourhood bricolage and there it was. And so it is with restoration products - there is paint for every imaginable surface, cleaning products for the most difficult unimaginable, and hinges and hardware reproduced from one or the other Louis to modern space-age materials in fuschia, orange or lime green.

Simple "prie dieu" used for storage.
Photo by JoyD.

Insofar as re-purposing goes, I acquired (with the purchase of this house) a "chair" that is not a chair but a "prayer stool" from a church - a simple "prie dieu" (without a ledge for a bible). I have it in my bedroom - chambre - and have "hung" a variety of things on this piece. The result has been repurposed from prayer to storage and decorative storage at that without having to sand, paint or supplement.

I haven't seen many around at the vides greniers (community "boot" or "garage" sales) or brocantes (second hand stores or community sales) in our area here in Dordogne. However I will be looking because I believe they are the right height for setting an overnight bag and more purposeful for hanging a variety of things, from towels to clothing to accessories.

Repurposing seems to be the theme of the week . . . take a look at my August 10th post.

My Guest Bedroom "Closets" in France

Necessary: A Place to Hang a Few Things

As I shared with you in my post on Too Few Closets here in France, our three guest bedrooms had nothing for closet space. The armoires I wanted were a tad over my budget and I didn't want to settle for the cheaper ones I found.

In a house with four bedrooms, only one has any kind of built in storage and it is that bedroom we chose as the master bedroom. I have had to build some "hanger space" in the other three bedrooms for guest use. Each is adequate but I couldn't imagine a family being accommodated by my interpretation of closet space.

Closet alternative in the blue guest room. Photo by JoyD.

The former owners' son took the armoire and the room was left devoid of closet space. With help from Shirley B who was visiting us from Saskatoon, SK, Canada, we decided to construct a "temporary" closet space until we find the perfect armoire. We bought the brackets and rod at Bricorama in Port Ste. Foy et Ponchapt and had the shelving cut to size at Mr. Bricolage in Pineuilh. It was relatively simple to create and it turned out functional and relatively attractive.

Closet doors nailed shut. Photo by JoyD.

The next chambre was the the one that formerly had a built-in closet but was renovated to accommodate a toilette on the second floor (premier étage in France). The doors were nailed shut by the previous owners and we inherited yet another room with no closet space. 

Drapery rod & plant hangers create an alternate closet space.
Photo by JoyD.

I was pressed for time since we were getting more visitors and so I basically did the same in this room as I did in the blue room. This time, I bought four outdoor plant hangers and a drapery rod and voila, a place to hang clothes, if not a closet. I didn't bother with any shelving. Instead, at the "recycleterie" in Pessac I bought a heavy "coffee table" or at least I believe it was a coffee table and positioned it under the hangers. It's a good height for a suitcase and all of the visitor's possessions can be in one area. 

In the pink room, there was a bookcase in the corner that became piled higher and deeper. Two of the lower shelves collapsed and we were forced to relocate all the books to the attic. We still needed some sort of "hanger space" and so we re-purposed the splayed bookcase into an open closet. 

Bookshelf repurposed into closet space. Photo by JoyD.

As a result, here is what we constructed in true re-purposing style. We found some old baseboard in the attic, bought yet another drapery rod, removed the shelving, and stabilized the unit at the bottom so that the board serving as the baseboard is also serving to keep the splayed sides in 90 degree angle form.

A little motivation, some screws and paint, several opportunities to put to other uses and re-purposing has now given 
my guests somewhere to hang a few things.

Too Few Closets

Armoire in our French home. Photo by JoyD.

Armoires are big in France - big in size and big in popularity just because built-in closets as in the North American style are few and far between particularly in the old houses. Our house in the South-West of France is not so old by French standards. It was built in 1868 so when you consider that friends of ours near Macon live in an old farmhouse dating back to the 15th century, our house is modern comparatively speaking. However in Canada we talk of our house in France as being old.

Master bedroom closet doors. Photo by JoyD.

We have four bedrooms on the second level, premier étage by French definition, and only one bedroom has a configuration that would be considered "built-in". The doors you see are the built-in closet doors. All our clothing needs are housed behind those four doors. My stuff on the left and my husband's on the right. Although I must admit I have a few of my things on his side. Above the doors are sliding wooden doors but they don't slide very well so only that which is not often required is stored up there.

Guest bedroom faux closet doors. Photo by JoyD.

Another bedroom appears to have had the same construction but the space, behind those doors, that was once a closet was renovated and retrofitted by the previous owners into a "toilette"/water closet in the 1990s. Good plan. I'd rather have toilet facilities on the second floor than a clothes closet in a bedroom seldom used. The other two bedrooms have absolutely nothing for closets and so owing to guests who live out of suitcases for a week or two while visiting, we needed something to hang a few items of clothing. 

Ugly clothing rack in guest bedroom. Photo by JoyD.

For a couple of years, we made do with those brackets that fit over the door and provide a series of hooks but that was just inconvenient for closing doors and for hanging a shirt decently and ugly too.

Clothing rack and ledge in blue guest room. Photo by JoyD.

My friend, Shirley B, while visiting in 2012, suggested a simple bracketed clothes rack with a ledge/shelf on top. We brainstormed all kinds of possibilities to repurpose as the brackets and I even found a photo of a folding chair mounted on the wall to serve as a clothing hanger. I finally had to settle for that which I found at the "brico". I spent a few Euros on brackets at "vides greniers" AKA community boot sales (UK) or garage/yard sales (NoAm) that didn't work but perhaps I will find another use for them.

Blue guest room in Port Ste. Foy et Ponchapt. Photo by JoyD.

So with the help of Mr. Bricolage and my husband, this room is ready for guests and they will have a space to hang a few things. The  basket becomes a catch-all for toiletries and such, which need to be carted back and forth between bed and bath.

What to do in the bedroom that once had a closet with doors that are now simply decoration? I welcome your ideas . . . 

Ikea full length mirror in guest room. Photo by JoyD.

September 1, 2013 Update in Response to "Relaxing in Kelowna" comment: Here's the mirror we put in the blue guest room. After taking the wallpaper off, there were wooden beams indicating a doorway that had previously been "filled in". When you have a defect, make it a feature and so we stained the beams and hung a full length mirror in the space. Ikea's framed mirrors were the best price for mirror and frame. I put a lined-basket on the table beside the mirror for the "stuff" that needs to be toted back and forth between bed and bath.