Let me preface this article by firming stating that floordrobes are unnacceptable. How anyone can sleep at night with piles of crap next to their bed is beyond me, but I’m here to assist those who weren’t born with weird paranoid insomnia that’s spurned on by dirty knickers all over the carpet. This is my gift to you. Floordrobe be gone!
How To Manage Your Floordrobe
Have designated places for all of your clothes
If you don’t have specified areas to store your clothes, it’s impossible for you to ever be able to put them away. Grab some cheap drawer dividers from a storage store or Ikea if you have one near by and make little spaces for different types of clothing in your drawers. One for underwear, one for socks, one for t-shirts. Whatever works for you. Keep things like jeans, jersey items and knits folded on shelves or in drawers (or you can stay tuned for the Smaggle method). Hang up shirts, dresses and business pants and put labels above the rack so you know what goes in each area. Get an accessories holder for things like belts, scarves and hats and put things away as you take them off. If there’s an empty spot in your wardrobe where the item should be, it makes it much easier to put things away.
This is my underwear drawer. You can see my Sport Sock, Boot Sock and Not For Sexy Time Underwear sections. Feel free to create your own categories.
If your clothes are dirty put them in the washing basket
This seems super obvious but apparently a lot of people struggle with it. Where ever it is that you get naked most, put a washing basket there. It will make it so much easier to just strip off and throw the dirty clothes in the basket rather than letting them fall into a pile at your feet. Have two washing baskets if you need, one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom, just make sure you have somewhere to put your dirty clothes when you take them off that’s not the floor.
This is my washing basket and I keep it in the bathroom because that’s where I’m naked the most. Note: There’s no clothing in or around the washing basket. Be very aware of the bathroom floordrobe… they are way damper and stinkier than bedroom floordrobes.
Get rid of clothes that you never wear… even if they’re really expensive
You know that super expensive shirt that you bought 2 years ago that you loved in the store but every time you put it on you look like a magician on steroids? News flash. It’s never magically going to look good, no matter how many rental payments you missed to buy it. Whenever I see my friend’s floordrobes they appear to be full of clothes that I’ve never seen before. Rogue expensive items that get tried on, rejected, then flung on the floor in disgust. These items have no place in your life. Sell them, donate them or give them to a friend because from what I can tell, 90% of most floordrobes are made of items like these.
This is a picture of the bedroom I share with Mr Smaggle just so you know that I really and truly don’t have a floordrobe… but sometimes if we’re feeling particularly fancy free, we’ll chuck our jackets on the bed when we get home instead of hanging them up right away. Watch out world… the Smaggles are cutting loose.
If you can get another wear out of today’s outfit… put it back in your cupboard
If you’ve worn an item and it’s still clean enough to wear it again, for god’s sake put it away. The washing basket is for dirty clothes, your wardrobe is for clean and cleanish clothes. The floor is for feet. If you MUST have a place to put your clothes overnight have a Holding Bay, like a chair or a stool. Personally, if I had a Holding Bay, I’d only use it for pre-planned outfits or gym gear for 6am workouts but if you must use it for semi-clean, already worn clothing then use it as a stepping stone. A Holding Bay is much better than a floordrobe and once you’ve gotten used to your Holding Bay you can graduate to full wardrobe use. Baby steps, petals, baby steps.
And finally… The Smaggle Method
This is a method I developed a few years ago. Although I’m pretty tidy, I’m also super busy and as such you won’t find piles of perfectly folded and laundered clothing in my cupboard. Please. I have cats to look at on YouTube, thank you very much. For anything that doesn’t need ironing, my belief is that it also doesn’t need folding. So that means singlet tops, knits, anything jersey, everything from Metalicus. For these items, rather than driving myself mental trying to keep them folded in a pile on a shelf or in a drawer, I keep two Ikea cloth boxes down the bottom of my wardrobe… one has basics like t-shirts and singlets and the other has knits and cardigans. When I’m looking for an item, I grab the box, empty it on the bed, find the item, shove the other stuff back in the box and put the box back in the cupboard. Below is a short video to demonstrate the method. I don’t want you screwing it up now.
This simple cloth box may be the answer to all your floordrobe problems. Observe.