Category Archives: Clothing Storage & Display

Sock drawer

How To Organize A Sock Drawer

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Sock drawer

If you’re like me then you likely haven’t give much thought to organizing your sock drawer. You know the drawer that I mean. It’s the one that contains your sports socks, dress socks, casual socks, and other assorted patterns, all jumbled together in one big mess. Sometimes it can take a few minutes to find a matching pair of socks in that jumbled mess when you’re in a rush to get to an interview. Often the solution means dumping the entire contents of the drawer onto the floor and then sifting through the rubble to find what you need.

Maybe it’s time to organize these socks so that you can get at them in a fast efficient manner. Organizing a sock drawer need not be a major chore, but doing it can give you a huge leverage of time in the future. So, five minutes of thought now in exchange for never having to do an exhaustive search for a complementary pair again.

What would be the best way to organize the socks? Start by dumping the sock drawer onto your bed to see what you have. If it’s been awhile, chances are there are socks in the pile you didn’t know you even had. Those can then be promptly thrown out. Now find pairs for everything. Any stray sock that doesn’t have a partner can also be thrown out. Be brutal. There’s no room for sentimentality when it comes to organizing socks.

So now you should have a collection of pairs of socks all over your bed. Should you roll the pairs together? Rolling means stretching one of the socks of a pair over another so that you’re left with a small ball that represents one pair. It’s personal preference what you’d like to do. Rolling pairs together will make for better organization, but the process of combining 2 socks together can cause them to stretch and might lessen their life. Most people find it best just to place the socks in drawers the way they are.

Now the fun begins. It’s probably best to put your newly sorted pairs into small piles based on function. At minimum you’ll have a sports pile, a dress socks pile, and a casual socks pile. Try to condense all of your socks into about four or five functions. Having five small piles seems much more manageable than one large pile. This way, when it comes time to find a pair in the future you’ll have to sift through a much smaller pile and that task won’t seem as daunting.

Once you have your four or five small piles it’s time to actually prepare the drawer. Find some unused shoe boxes or small cardboard boxes and fit them snugly inside the drawer. Then place each different pair set into one of the boxes. Your most-used socks can go on the left and those you use the least all the way on the right.

Now if your friend gives you that last-minute call and asks you to play tennis you won’t have to spend a majority of time looking for the right pair of socks.

Hats and caps

How to Store Hats and Caps

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Hats and caps

For every hat or cap that you own there is a time and a place to wear them. Sometimes you may only wear a certain ball cap a couple of times a year and other hats you may wear on a rather frequent basis. Perhaps you have a fancy fedora or cowboy hat you like to wear when you go out. Whatever the case may be what is equally as important about when and where you wear your hats and caps is what you do with them when you are not wearing them and instead are storing them.

Of course how you actually store a hat or cap will depend largely on the type of hat or cap you have and you can always just leave your hats lying around the house, but there are several ways to easily store your hats and caps that will keep the homestead looking ship-shape. Here are some of those ways:

•    Hat boxes: This of course is only going to apply to your fancier hats. Top hats, fedoras, cowboy hats, etc. There a number of hat boxes that can be obtained that are not too expensive and will be worth every penny you spend as they will keep your fancier hats from being harmed in any way. The nice thing about hat boxes is that if you have more than one you can easily stack them on the top self of your closet and they will then be out of the way and take up less space.
•    Hanging hat racks: If you have a lot of ball caps you can display them and keep them neat all at the same time. This is accomplished with a hat rack that you hang on the wall. This type of hat rack will usually be made of wood and will have several pegs that protrude out so that you can hang the caps from them. These types of hat racks are great because you can get one for each individual in the house and put them in their rooms. You would be surprised at how much clutter a dozen ball caps can create. Get them up off the floors and off the dressers with a hanging wall mounted hat rack.
•    Over the door hat rack: This is another great space saver. These types of hat racks usually have two hooks on the top that allow it to hang on any bedroom door. The hooks will lay flush with the top of the door which will allow the door to open and close as normal with no interference. These types of racks are usually made of plastic and are meant for more storage than they are display. But if you or someone in your house has a huge collection of ball caps then this is the ideal solution for you.

While your hats and caps may look good on your head when you are wearing them, they do not look good when scattered around your home. Fortunately there are plenty of ways to store your hats and caps that will keep your house looking tidy.

Underwear drawer

How To Organize An Underwear Drawer

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Underwear drawer

It’s time to get dressed. It’s a cold day, you’ve just showered, and the first stop is the underwear drawer. Then it hits you. You see a drawer or drawers full of underwear, sometimes so full the drawer can’t be closed. Different colors and fabrics are sticking out of the drawer in all directions while you stand there, shivering, trying to find something to wear. If this scenario sounds familiar then you need to organize your underwear drawer.

The first step is to dump out the drawer containing your underwear onto a bed. It’ll be quite a pile but don’t worry as there will be a method to attack this madness. Whether you’re a man or woman, think about categories and which piece of fabric fits best into a particular category. Some category ideas might include boxers, briefs, panties and sports bras.

One way to begin organizing is to examine each piece of clothing. Try it on. Does it still fit? Is it something that can be worn in the future? If not throw it out. Whittle down to what you actually use. The next step is to separate garments into two categories, work and non-work. For men these categories might blur and not take much thought but women might have more sub-categories such as work and non work bras, full coverage underwear, boy-cut styles, or thongs depending on the degree of coverage and the look that’s needed. Organizing by color is also another popular way to go.

Have different boxes and containers for different types of underwear. G-strings could be in one container while boxer briefs are in another. You may want to line the containers first with self-adhesive tape. Lining a container protects soft fabrics and increases their longevity. Remove the lids to the containers and place the entire container in the drawer.
Containers come in all types as well. If you’d like to place all undergarments of one type together in one container then that is a fine solution. Also available, however, are drawer separator options that allow you to actually place one piece of underwear in its own cubicle area. Some are spring-loaded which will enable you to conserve more space than ever by helping you minimize the space per garment.

How you place the garments in these containers is up to you. Folding is an option. This can keep your garments in good shape and increase your available space. To save space consider storing underwear one layer deep. This is also helpful in minimizing the time it takes to search for something you want. Bras can be folded one cup into another while certain very sensitive pieces, like delicate lingerie, might need to actually be hung up so details like lace won’t get damaged. If folding or hanging is not for you and too tedious, there’s nothing wrong with simply rolling your underwear into a ball and throwing them into the containers.

There are endless ways to organize an underwear drawer. As personal as underwear is, so are the ways they can be organized. No matter how you do it, just keep in mind that you’ll want easy access to what you’ll need.

Hair dryer

How to Use Your Hair Dryer to Quickly Dry Your Clothes

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Hair dryer

A hair dryer can be used to dry plenty of things besides just hair. A hair dryer is a very useful instrument for taking care of clothing of all types, and anyone who has experienced an inconvenient spill or has waited for an item of clothing to dry shouldn’t be without one.

Just about any fabric can be spot cleaned to remove a stain before it sets into the fabric. You may have experienced a spill on an outfit just before you were about to head out the door. To get the spill out of the fabric, it had to be spot cleaned right away, but you knew you wouldn’t have time to put the clothing into the dryer before leaving. It’s happened to everyone, and changing the outfit or walking out with a wet spot seem like the only options available. However, many people haven’t considered how handy their hair dryer can be at these times. A hair dryer can be used to spot dry the area that was spot cleaned, making a change or running out in wet clothing unnecessary.

Using a hair dryer to dry these items will allow you to concentrate the air on one area, taking far less time to dry the item and putting it in a dryer. Although it’s tempting to blow dry an item while you’re wearing it, it will dry faster if you take it off first. Hang the item up if possible and blow dry it so that the air flows through the fabric. This will dry the fabric far faster and you will be able to put on the item in just minutes.

There are plenty of other times when a hair dryer can come in handy to dry clothing as well. There are many delicate fabrics that were not supposed to be put through a dryer. Many people wash their delicates such as lacy underwear, bras and pantyhose and then hang them up to dry. Hanging them up to dry can take hours for them to dry enough to be worn. This can be an inconvenient waiting period for anyone who needs to put on these things but can’t risk putting them in the dryer.

Like other clothing, it’s best to hang up these items when using a hair dryer on them. You can hang them over a hanger or a shower rod to make things easier. Then, hold the hairdryer several inches away from the item to ensure that you don’t damage the fabric. For delicate items, it’s best to use a cool setting on your hairdryer if it has one. If not, move the hairdryer back and forth so that no one area gets too much heat. This will dry larger areas faster while not burning any of the delicate fabric. If you have a focusing tip that you can place on your hairdryer, this can be helpful as well for blow drying smaller items. However, a diffuser would take away the effectiveness of the hairdryer by limiting the amount of air that it puts out.

Rolling T-Shirts To Save Space When Packing

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One of the biggest challenges when doing any type of travelling is packing your suitcase. In fact, properly packing is practically an art form. Many seasoned travelers have their own pattern of packing down to a system that they either love and totally rely on or are continually looking to improve upon.

Anytime you are packing, space is a premium. It’s always easier to find extra things to bring along or even to use smaller luggage if you pack efficiently enough and have extra space, but more often than not, the opposite is true. You pick out the things you want to pack and begin putting them in a suitcase only to find that you run out of space and need to remove things or move to a bigger bag or additional bags to accommodate all the original items. Luckily there are techniques that will help you to save space while packing, so you can get the most in your luggage and be ready for anything.

The absolute best space saving tip when packing is to roll your T-shirts, and other clothing too, before placing them in the suitcase. By folding the sleeves inward and then rolling the T-shirt into a tight cylinder you will find that you can fit tons of T-shirts in your luggage. Rolled T-shirts also make it easy to see at a glance which shirts you have on hand. They can all be placed side by side, so when you are putting together an outfit, it is easy to grab the right color. You’ll never again have to search through stacks of folded T-shirts searching for the one you need.

Another bonus which comes from rolling T-shirts for packing is that it reduces wrinkling. Rolled T-shirts stay looking good and don’t form the creases and wrinkles that folded ones do, while in a suitcase. This means you can just pull a T-shirt out of your bag, put it on and go. You don’t have to worry about taking the extra time to iron it.

T-shirts are an absolute lifesaver when travelling. They travel easily, are absorbent and comfortable. They are easily washed and require very little in extra care. They can be mixed and matched for a variety of different looks. You can dress T-shirts up for a special event. They are also perfectly suitable for the most casual of times, when working out or even for sleeping. Make sure that when you travel you carry a good selection of T-shirts with you.