By Joanna Delson

Cleaning and reorganizing can be daunting, but a little work at a time goes a long way….The next few columns will cover different aspects of spring cleaning, so that you can focus on one small area without feeling overwhelmed. Your apartment can become and stay organized with just a few hours of work on a regular basis!

Spring Cleaning: The Coat Closet

As spring timidly makes its appearance, it is finally time to put away the winter coats and  snow boots and snow pants and make way for spring jackets and rain boots and raincoats. Just the act of cleaning out the coat closet can inspire even the most reticent cleaners to start moving around the apartment and brush away the winter cobwebs to make room for spring air.In just an hour or two (while the weather is still iffy and being outside is not a given), the coat closet can be transformed.  All it takes is setting aside the time.

First, pull everything out of the closet  (yes, everything!).  Wash, dust, and dry the space. Next, make piles. Coats that have been outgrown go into the “give away” pile. Coats that haven’t been worn for two seasons should also go (if a coat is infrequently or never worn, but is of sentimental value, it should go into storage and not reside in the active coat closet).  The remaining coats should be washed or go to the dry cleaners, depending on the care recommendations. If you’re handy with a needle and thread, test all buttons and shore up the loose ones. Otherwise the dry cleaner can do that for you. Have any broken zippers repaired as well. If you are washing jackets, don’t forget to remove the “hood fur” (usually it zips off or unbuttons) or it will be ruined in the wash/dry cycle.

For those fortunate enough to have room—an extra closet, a storage room, or a basement—hang the freshly laundered and repaired coats, jackets, and ski pants there (on a canvas covered coat rack if you are using a basement) and forget about them until there’s a chill in the air again. Remove all dry cleaning bags before storing.  If you aren’t lucky enough to have “extra” storage, push all of the winter coats to one side of the closet (they’ll take up less space now that you’ve gotten rid of a few of them!) and make way for the spring coats and jackets on the other side. Repeat the process when the time comes in the fall.

Other items almost always make their way into the coat closet: backpacks and other bags, shoes, sports equipment. Try to maintain a coat closet just for outdoor wear and find another home for everything else, unless you have a  closet large enough to house those extra items in an organized fashion.

If there is room, each family member should have a bin for hats, gloves and scarves (label the bins with family members’ names or initials) or, for tighter spaces, use a set or two of low plastic drawers that sit on the closet floor or on a shelf.  Give each family member a labeled drawer. Try to make the bins or drawers accessible to children so that they can help themselves independently. Switch out the hats, mittens, and scarves for sunhats, sunglasses, and suntan lotion when the weather changes. Again, discard or pass on any outgrown or worn items, launder those that need it, and store. Put the snowboots on a top shelf.  Switch them out for the rainboots.

A simple coat closet cleaning can help make getting off to school or to work easier and can be an inspiration to take on anothersmall reorganizing project when the next couple of free hours present themselves. After all, “Winter always turns to spring.” *

* Nichiren Daishonin