You know how it is when your wardrobe is so crammed with stuff that you can’t find what you’re looking for? Or even worse, at the end of a season you come across an old favourite that got buried so deep you’d forgotten you had it, and you’ve missed wearing it when it would have been perfect?

Me too. When you love clothes, sometimes you end up with more clobber than closet.

So, for everyone out there who wants more wardrobe space, but doesn’t have the luxury of a dressing room, here are some ideas:

 

Create Order from Chaos

Maybe you can’t fit in another wardrobe, but can you fit in an extra rail in your existing wardrobe? You can buy hanging rails and fixings without spending too much, and they work great if you have mostly separates. It makes sense to have two tiers of shorter garments so you can spread them out a bit, rather than cramming them all onto one rail.

If your clothes are a mixture of lengths, sort them out so all the long things are together and all the shorter items are together. Then, underneath the shorter items there’s space for a functional plastic drawer tower or a couple of shoe racks.

Those drawer towers may not be the height of décor fashion, but they are ideal for smalls, accessories or folded items, and no one is going to see it. You can also use a drawer for hair tools and other beauty products to free up space in the dressing table or your main chest of drawers.

 

Be Strict with Unused Items

This doesn’t mean donating or selling things, it means taking an ‘out of the box’ approach to seasonal clothing. As the seasons change, practically half of the clothes we own get put to one side in favour of more suitable garments. If you’re not going to wear something for several months, why keep it in the wardrobe?

A self storage unit is the perfect solution to crammed wardrobes all year round. With such a big variety of sizes in rooms, you can choose whatever suits your needs or budget. You can install rails to hang things or drawers for folded items, so everything stays pristine. As long as all the fittings are free standing, you can do what you like with your rented space.

During summer, into store goes all your winter stuff, and vice versa. You automatically get twice as much wardrobe and drawer space at home, while your clothes are safely parked until you need them again.

Getting some space back at home is a major factor here, but there’s another reason to think about self storage: when you haven’t seen something for a few months, it feels new again – especially if you’d forgotten about it. It beats making rash decisions to sell items, then wanting them back again. And if you decide you really don’t want to keep something, at least you have a bit of distance from it and you can be confident you’re making a good decision.

You can use spare space in your self storage room for household items too, especially those with a seasonal period of use. When you look for self storage in your area, there’s a handy room size indicator to make it easier to figure out what space you need.

 

Get Creative with Your Wardrobe Space

Now you’ve rescued a bit of space from the closet, here are some more tips for getting the maximum use out of that minimum space:

• Fit hooks or a narrow rail inside the door. Makes a handy space for scarves, beads, ties, belts etc.
• Fashion a shoe rack out of the tension rods intended for delicate window dressings. Use one for a quick way to support shoes, or two if you want to lift the shoes off the bottom of the wardrobe.
• Extend your hanging space by connecting two hangers together with ring pulls off soft drinks or beer cans. Or go fancy and buy actual hanger extenders. The ring pull trick is a good hack for emergencies or for those of us who enjoy repurposing and upcycling.
• Use shelf dividers on the top shelf of a wardrobe if you have one. They prevent stacked items toppling over and getting tangled with neighbouring stacks. Also, if there’s space, fit a hanging shelf under the main shelf, above the rail. Very handy for gloves or hats, or other small things that are easily misplaced in a crowded closet.

 

Good clothes are expensive, and with the emphasis on slow fashion now it seems lots of us are trying to buy better quality items that will last longer. That doesn’t necessarily mean buying less, so it’s even more important to figure out ways to store everything so it’s easy to find and stays in good condition for more than a single season.

Hopefully we’ve given you a few ideas on how to squeeze a bit extra out of the finite space of an ordinary wardrobe.