Spring Fling: 3 Seasonal Organizing Projects

Spring has come to New England and with the warmer weather, we can say good-bye to snow shovels, boots, scarves, and wool sweaters. This month I’m working on a few seasonal organizing projects of my own.*

For each of my projects the key strategy is rotate: I put what I’m going to use now easily within reach, and put the off-season items away.

Hall Closet: I use an over-the-door shoe bag with pockets in my closet. In the winter the  pockets are filled with hats, gloves, and pocket-size Kleenex…but for the summer, they are replaced with sunscreen, sunglasses and summer hats. I also pull out all the winter things that have drifted to the bottom of the closet, and sort into piles: to donate, to wash, or take to the dry cleaners. Once everything is clean, it all gets put away in a basket at the bottom of the closet, or hung in the back of the closet. The spring jackets get rotated to the front of the closet for easy access.

Clothes Closet: Same strategy for my closet—take out the winter things for storage in the attic, while checking to see if there are any clothes/shoes that I haven’t worn and can donate. I also make piles for dry cleaning and mending. Then the summer clothes go in and I’m ready for warmer weather.

Basement: This is another area to rotate items: the snow shovels go to the back of the basement in one corner, making it easier for me to reach the gardening equipment. The ice skates and sleds get put away, while my daughter's bike comes out.

*If you live in an area that doesn’t have such drastic weather changes, you can still use the Spring and Fall as reminders to do a sort and purge of the closets, basement or attic.