Joan Wilen and Lydia Wilen
Joan Wilen and Lydia Wilen are folk-remedy experts and home tipsters based in New York City. They have spent decades collecting “cures from the cupboard” and are authors of several books, including Secret Food Cures.
Clutter destroys the serenity of a space. If you’re like most people the way you make clutter disappear is to shove it into a closet, close the door, and try to pretend it isn’t there until something makes you deal with it. Usually, needing a certain something you haven’t seen in months or maybe even years. There are more constructive closet organizing ideas to keep things clean, and let you find the things you need quickly and easily.
In this excerpt from the book Household Magic authors Joan and Lydia Wilen share some of their closet organizing ideas, and their secrets for getting rid of clutter.
If you have used your closets as dumping grounds for stuff you do not want anyone to see, it’s time to go through that stuff…then sell or donate to charity the things you don’t need, and organize the things you still value and use
There are stores that specialize in storage and organizational products—closet stores have do-it-yourself kits that will help you reconfigure closet space for your specific needs. But before you can know what you need, you have to know what you have. Keep in mind that less is best.
Here are some suggestions to help you thin out the stuff in your closets…and to use the space more wisely. After you’ve done the initial thinning and organizing, you’ll be able to determine whether or not a trip to a closet shop would be helpful.
Closet-Clutter Reality Check
Keep track of which clothes you wear—and, more importantly, which clothes you don’t wear—using this simple method. First, start each new wardrobe season by hanging your clothes in the closet with all of the hangers’ hooks facing you.
Then, each time you wear and wash an article of clothing, put it back with the hook facing into the closet. At the end of the season, you will be able to tell at a glance which garments were not worn simply by the way the hanger hooks are facing.
Now comes the decluttering part of this process. To thin out your wardrobe, select give-aways from the clothes that are on the hangers with hooks still facing you…the clothes that you didn’t wear at all. And then, take it a step further. Review the clothes you DID wear and didn’t like. Take them to a thrift shop and let them make other people happy.
◆ Rub your closet’s clothing rod with a piece of waxed paper and your hangers will move along the rod smoothly and easily.
◆ Hardware stores have inexpensive plastic rod covers that come in a variety of colors. The covers make it easy to slide hangers back and forth on the closet rod.
◆ Place a shower-curtain ring on the neck of a hanger, and then you can hang another hanger on it.
◆ Always hang your clothes facing the same direction—that way, there’s less space be – tween clothes. So, you’ll have more hanging space, and your closet will look neater.
If you have some extra shower-curtain hooks around, slip them on the closet rod, and use them to hang purses, belts or ties…or tote bags filled with stuff that would otherwise be floating around loose in the closet.
If you wish you had shelves in a roomy closet, visit a thrift shop or unpainted furniture store and look for an inexpensive bookcase.
Put the bookcase inside your closet—you will have your shelves and none of the bother of putting them up.
If you have a guest closet in your entryway, hang a shoe holder on the inside door. To store accessories that you may need before going outside—such as scarves, gloves, hats, sunglasses—assign compartments of the shoe bag for each of those things.
You can also store pet accessories in the shoe bag, such as your dog’s leash or winter jacket, as well as a small flashlight.
◆ Keep a few open boxes of baking soda somewhere in the closet.
◆ Put natural clay kitty litter in a shoe box or pie tin, and leave it on the floor of the closet…but NOT if you have a cat who has access to the closet.
If it’s a walk-in closet and you don’t want to step on the litter, put it in the leg of an old pair of pantyhose, knot it closed and hang it in a corner.
◆ Use chalk…or charcoal briquettes…or cedar chips to freshen your musty closet. Put them in a pie tin on the floor or hang them in an old pair of pantyhose.
CAUTION: Do not let cedar chips come into direct contact with your clothes. They can cause fabrics to yellow.
If you have louvered or slatted closet doors, you can keep your clothes dust-free and moth-free by covering the openings—just tape sheets of waxed paper on the inside of the doors.
If you’re like everyone else, your closet space may be limited. Instead of taking up room storing blankets, put them on the floor under the beds on which they’re used. That way, you save space in the closet, and it makes it easy to get to them on a cold night.
Sweet-Scented Moth Repellent
Ever make an orange-spice pomander ball? If not, here’s your chance. Start by gathering the following ingredients…
1 ounce ground orris root (available at select herb stores…or online)
1 ounce ground cinnamon
1 ⁄2 ounce ground nutmeg
2 feet of 1 ⁄4″- to 1 ⁄2″-wide ribbon (non-silky ribbon, such as grosgrain, works best)
1 thin-skinned orange (the peel stays on)
1 box of whole cloves
Combine the orrisroot, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl and set it aside
Take one foot of the ribbon and cut it in half. Then tie one strip around the orange and knot it on top. Do the same thing with the other strip of ribbon, so that the two strips criss-cross the orange. (If your ribbon is silky, you may want to stick a pushpin in on each of the strips to keep them from slipping.)
Next, stick the cloves all over the orange— but not in the ribbon. Then place the clove-stuck orange in the bowl with the spices, gently rolling it around. Let it sit in the bowl for about five days, turning it occasionally.
After five days, take the orange out of the bowl, hold it over the sink and, using a hair dryer set on a low and cool setting, blow off any excess spices. Now the pomander ball is ready to be hung in the closet.
Attach the remaining ribbon to the pomander ball, and hang it from the closet rod. This scented moth repellent will last for years.
NOTE: For a spicy-scented moth repellent, cut the leg off a clean, old pair of pantyhose and fill the foot with crushed peppercorns. Knot it closed, and hang it in the closet.
It smells better than mothballs and does the job as well.
To discover more ways to get organized, learn food tips, and improve daily household living pick up a copy of Household Magic from Bottomlineinc.com.
