Store the out of season coats elsewhere.

Do you need the ski jackets and parkas at the moment? They take up a lot of room. Suggest you get yourself a good decorative blanket box, and store them in that. if you have room put blanket box at foot of a bed, or use as a window seat. Failing that, you need to pack them in a suitcase and put them in a loft or garage.

Which coats are worn the least - wool dress coats? Move them to a different area.

The ski parkas can probably "live" folded up in a gym bag with the ski gloves, goggles and other gear. Unless you live where you wear the parkas daily.

I suppose you could store your coats as DH wants to store his.......over the back of dining room chairs. There are 3 there now. It's 5 feet to a coat closet that has nothing hanging there.......
grrrrrr

Barbara

Do you have a place on the wall where you can hang one or two of the hook coat racks? I've done that and it has helped minimze the problem. I'm the worst offender. I have a warm coat, jackets and hoodies for outside excercise and walking the dog, and then my nice looking jackets for when I go out in public.

Barbara I am laughing be quad my sons pile coats 3 deep on the back of the DR chairs. I have threatened to just put hooks on the DR wall.

We actually wear the ski jackets a lot more than just the once a week skiing. The weather in Ohio varies to the extreme. I the same week we could wear a hoodie, medium wool coat and a parka. And rain coats are used a lot, too.

Hi, Mommabird
Our house was built in 1938. My BR closet is only 3 feet wide. Same size in the other BR, which DH uses for his clothes. No coat closet on the first floor, so we added a big one when we finished the basement. All of the coats, jackets, boots, hats, gloves, scarves, everything goes in that closet. In the morning, we run down for a coat, and hang it up in the evening.

The transition seasons are hardest, aren't they?

But I would say either store only TWO coats (a lightish one for whichever season you have, and a heavier one for that season) in that closet.

At the very least, I would say that wool dress coats should go in the bedrooms; they're probably not used daily. And when you want them (dress-up days), you'll be willing to go get them, probably. (And if you're not, then maybe you don't really need to own them--I do not ever buy my kids, or me, dress coats.)

And rain coats can go in the closets, because if you need them, you'll REALLY need them, and you'll be willing to go there to get them. And you probably don't use them *that* often.

Or, start storing ALL coats in the bedrooms.

At the very least, perhaps you can train yourself to travel all the way into your bedroom before you take your coat off; then it's just the 2 boys.

(I bought a Lands End Squall, bcs it's light AND heavy.)

I am so lucky. When we bought our house in 1981, it came with a huge cedar closet in the basement, perfect for out of season clothing storage. I occasionally refresh the cedar walls with some sanding or cedar oil spray.

Here is what I have come up with - kind of a hybrid of all your great suggestions.

There are 2 closets in my room, both about 4' wide. I use one for my clothes and used the other for storage. I cleaned out the storage closet and donated almost all the contents to Goodwill. I am now hanging all my coats plus the boys' ski jackets in that closet. That frees up the coat closet for the boys' other coats. My room is on the first floor so this is working out well. I knew the boys wouldn't carry their coats upstairs - they'd end up on the back if the dining room chairs.

It felt great to clean out that closet! About 1/2 of the stuff in it was simply trash, the other 1/2 was worth donating.

hooray! a nice move.

could you use space savers bags for the large ski coats, --suck the air out of them and store at the bottom or top shelf of the closet?