I have a Goldilocks-like relationship with hangers. In my years of moving, I've always been looking for something juuuuuuust right to keep things in their place and keep my closet organized and looking good. In college, I had matching pink plastic hangers. They were uniform and didn’t take up a ton of space, but things fell off of them all the time. After I graduated from law school, I decided to be fancy and start using wooden hangers. Wooden hangers were uniform and held things up better than my pink plastics, but took up way too much space in my tiny closet, and cost more than was reasonable on my public service salary and student loan budget. For a while, my closet was a mishmash of pink plastic and wood, and I was constantly frustrated by the lack of space and things falling on the floor.
One day, on a whim, I picked up a 10 pack of velvet hangers at TJ Maxx. “Hrmm,” I thought, “I wonder how these will work with my stuff?” Fast forward a half hour: my closet was ripped apart, and I was back at TJ Maxx buying every velvet hanger I could find. A few hours later, it felt like my closet had doubled in size. I had so much more space! Dresses weren't falling on the floor! I could hang up stuff that otherwise had to fit in drawers! Victory was mine. Three years and two moves later, velvet hangers and I are still going strong. #TrueLove
Not everybody has the same strong feelings I have about velvet hangers, or hangers in general. (I don’t get it, but I accept it.) However, when trying to overhaul your closet, hangers are a great place to start thinking about how you can change the space. On my Goldilocks journey to velvet hangers, I realized I had some specific requirements for my hangers:
- They need to look uniform so that everything hangs at the same level;
- Clothes need to stay on them, not fall off;
- They need to conserve space since closet real estate is at a premium;
- They can’t break the bank.
For me, velvet hangers are it. For you, it might be wooden hangers. Or plastic. Or those silky padded ones that my grandma uses to hang her nighties. But I think we can all agree on one thing; in terms of keeping our closets in tip top shape, Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford was on to something: