Clothes storage

by Sarah Nicholson

Need more space in your wardrobe? To make clothes easier to find and prevent them being crushed, only hang the things that really need to be hung. 

Knitwear, t-shirts, casual trousers and jeans can all be folded and kept in drawers or on shelves. Heavier items, such as long jersey dresses, anything with heavy ornamentation and chunky knits should not be hung up, to avoid distorting their shape. Save the plastic covers that your dry cleaning is returned in to protect clothes that aren’t worn often (like evening dresses).

To prevent creases at the knees, don’t hang trousers on wire hangers. Use hangers with chunkier bars.  Or slit the cardboard tube from a roll of kitchen towel or a couple of toilet rolls and place over the bar. Or hang trousers from the bar by the hems using pegs.  Best of all, use purpose-made narrow hangers with clips.

Keep small items, such as socks, underpants, knickers, bras, tights and handkerchiefs together in shoeboxes, biscuit boxes, small baskets or drawer dividers. 

Scarves, belts and ties can alternatively be looped through a hanger.

To prevent moth holes in your clothing, there are some much pleasanter-smelling deterrents than mothballs. Don’t wait until you see moths in your wardrobe – it’s the larvae (grubs) that they have laid in your clothing that do the damage! 

Cedar chips or balls, bay leaves or dried lavender will all keep the horrors at bay.  These can be hung round the hooks of hangers in the feet of old tights or small bags made from circles of old net curtains gathered and tied with ribbon. But don’t let the moth deterrent come into contact with your clothes, as it could leave a stain.

If you have stored your winter woollies with mothballs, you don’t need to wash them again to remove the smell. Simply tumble dry for 20 minutes with some scented dryer sheets (or a hanky sprinkled with a few drops of essential oils or perfume).