I don't have a suggestion but I had to laugh when I thought of our "departmental coat" at my office...which we stored in the office supply room. Being in South Florida, we didn't have coats so we found a coat that all of us (three) agreed on. Then whomever was traveling (we traveled extensively) to cold country would grab the "departmental coat" on the way out the door to the airport. That strategy served us well for many years and only a few times did we need a coat at the same time.

I'm in a similar boat, in terms of varying weather.

And I don't even have a coat closet! We do have hooks in the front hall, but that gets really crowded and unwelcoming.

Add to it the problem that only DH and I have a clothes closet--the kids only have dressers. Works OK for most clothes, but not coats.

I've taken to hanging my coats in my bedroom. (of course, my bedroom isn't upstairs. It is on the far side of the apartment, but I've taken to going there to drop off my purse & tote bag anyway, and since I wear my purse over my shoulder, I have to take my purse off to take my coat off.

I find that at any given time, there's one coat that's"primary"; if I need another coat bcs of a shift in the weather, it'll only be for a day or two (slickers, for example). So storing those seldom-needed coats of my kids' in my bedroom closet is fine--if the kids really need them, I'll go get them.

Talley
the house we are in now is like that. I had one teeny closet down stairs the whole time the kids were growing up, and none in the bedrooms. After they all moved out we remodeled and put a closet upstairs in the now master BR and one in the hall way.
I was always glad when winter was over and I could get rid of the mounds of coats. LOL
Thats why I want to make sure I have provisions for coats in the house we are building.Its not a very big house so I have to plan carefully.

the other thing us NYers do is, every visitor's coats go on the bed.

or, if we know we're having company, we grab OUR coats off the hooks and dump THEM on the bed to make room on the hooks in the hallway, then put our coats back after company leaves.

LOL sue, I would like to avoid that. I guess I can designate a part of my WIC upstairs to coats that arent everyday coats.
BUT I DONT WANNNNAAA1 lol

What is your priority for allocating space in the coat closet--accommodating all of your own coats or leaving space in there all the time for visitors' coats? Do these people come over every day? week? month?

If you make accommodating your own coats the primary objective, have you made that coat closet big enough for that? I would (and did) give up space elsewhere to get adequate coat space for our own coats.

Visitors' coats can be accommodated on wall hooks, floor coat racks, etc. These can be quite beautiful. I even thought about playing around with them in the foyer and when they're empty doing seasonal displays of different hats hung from the hooks.

I hate putting coats that are worn outdoors and indoors in some smelly places (mostly due to air fresheners in commercial buildings) in with my other clothes.

I used to have a big party once a year, and the presence of the pile of coats on the bed was, I felt, an impediment to people gathering in the bedroom itself.

I always fantasized about getting one of those folding coat racks. But of course, storing that itself would be a PITA for me (no attic, no garage; basement storage room is pretty full)

If you follow pinktoes musings and make the closet yours, you could even put something low-profile like this on the wall or even on the outside of that closet door, and snag extra hangers from inside the closet to hold the coats themselves. It wouldn't take up floor space, and would be almost invisible when folded up.

And it's only $20!

Here is a link that might be useful: $85 for a folding coat rack

Or, blow the budget and see the link below. I got one years ago as an offcast from a bank. Heavy, gorgeous mahogany. Wish I had it now.

Here is a link that might be useful: lots of coatracks

we will put OUR excess coats in the bedroom closet( its a small walk in) and I guess I could use hooks for over flow when the kids come.
Thanks everyone

That same website has 6 pages of a wide variety of hooks. There are surely many, many more out there. DH wants to build all of ours out of a wooden backplate with slightly upslanted dowels for hooks that coats don't slide off of. My brother had his front hallway lined with that, using brass hooks just for company coats, hats and it worked great. We all loved grabbing our own coats to run in and out of the house while visiting.

Here is a link that might be useful: 6 pages of wall coat racks/hooks