Folding & Organizing Clothes
We have limited closet space in our house (without taking up additional rooms and getting a ton of under-the-bed boxes), so other than getting rid of clothes - which we've already done - I've resorted to trying to figure out different ways to store and organize the clothes that I have. The first step has been to determine the optimal spaces to store certain types of clothes, but that hasn't worked out for the best so far.
My first foray into folding started as trying to fold as flat as possible. Specifically my polo shirts, and copious amounts of t-shirts. This worked to a point - t-shirts went into dresser drawers, but were difficult to arrange and many plain shirts weren't really accessible. Polos worked out a little better, as I stacked them on top of each other and had space for them in the closet. But as I like to put the most recently-worn polos on the bottom of the stack, it was a bit of a chore to lift the stack, put them under.
So two weeks ago I thought I would try something different. I wanted to be able to access my clothes, all of them. At the time some of my stuff, like thin sweaters, were stacked haphazardly and I could really only grab a few at a time. I looked into some folding techniques, and found this amazing YouTube channel:
You will master organizing your wardrobe, packing light, and doing laundry here.
Everything is presented by Norwegian minimalist traveler turned pro organizer Tor Rydder.
I haven't finished diving through the channel, but the first few videos I found were about folding t-shirts (my first search), as well as some folds for polos and long-sleeve shirts. This worked, for the most part. I re-arranged some clothes in the closet, and moved my sweaters to the dresser where I could access them more freely.
Unfortunately this was also a bust. My dresser drawer was still packed. I also moved my polo shirts to the same drawer but they were folded flat, and I could not fit any more in the drawer (and I had some shirts in the laundry). Fast forward to this week's laundry day, I had to try something different.
This time I turned to Mari Kondo's folding methods. I've tried this before, and I'm honestly not a fan of folding shirts to stand them up. For the most part, I found that this doesn't really work. The shirts aren't as stiff as the videos make them out to be and they tend to fold out bulkier than folding them flat. They're supposed to be space-saving, but in practice I don't find this to be the case.
But I wanted to give it a try anyway. My main focus was on my polo shirts once again. I poured through the folding instructions and found some specifics for polo shirts. Really, they weren't much different than t-shirts, and the fold seems to keep the collars from getting squished. I also took the opportunity to make similar folds to the thin sweaters I had in the drawer.
This time the results were better. All of my sweaters and polo shirts now fit in the drawer! And it's easier to pick them out, and add recently cleaned shirts to the back. I made the same folds to other clothes - the t-shirts I moved to the closet1, my pyjamas, and work-out pants/shorts. For the most part, this method seems to be working.
I still need to give it some time to see if it's feasible long-term, or if I get tired of doing it this way.
As for Tor & Organizing TV, I think that channel will be very useful for packing for travel. A lot of his favourite methods involve rolling clothes (like hoodies) and I think that kind of space-saving will be helpful. I especially like his hoodie rolling method that turns your hoodie into a pillow. Ingenious!
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The t-shirts are still a work in progress. The problem is mainly the shape of the closet shelves, more than the folding / storing method.↩