Folding Clothes to Save Space -

Folding clothes following the Kon Mari method; Tips and tricks on organizing your folded clothes; Using organizing tools you have around the house;

Do you hate folding clothes and putting it away in your drawer? If so, you most likely hate it because you know your drawer will become disorganized as soon as you take the bottom item out? Right? How about when you can hardly open one of your drawers because it’s too full? Do you enjoy that?

If the statements made above ring true to you, you are now possibly at a stage in your life where organizing your clothes is a necessity. Doing so makes you cool, calm and collected when you are getting ready in the morning. If this sounds like you or a future version of yourself, keep reading. I will be going over tips and tricks you can use and follow to properly fold and organize your clothes in your dresser.

Pinterest graphic on Folding Clothes to Save Space

When you are at the stage where you are ready to fold and organize your clothing, it means that:

you’ve already emptied everything out
you have sorted it and know what you will be keeping and what you will be discarding
you have now found the perfect place/home for each grouping of items based on the amount that you have

If you haven’t done so, stop here and get to it! Before you can start folding and organizing, you absolutely need to declutter.

Now that the decluttering is done, it’s time to make it pretty, functional and practical. Let’s get started!

Clothes categories

When grouping similar items together, do your best to keep the categories as general as possible. For instance, when you group all of your tops together, you will include work tops, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. Once all is grouped together, it’s much easier to determine where you would like for everything to go depending on its use.

If you’ve read Marie Kondo’s books, you’re probably familiar with her method and the fact that she suggests to fold as much of your clothes as possible. Her reasoning behind this is that folding your clothes take much less space than hung clothes, which is true. She also encourages you to only hang clothes that need to be hung like cashmere tops, long dresses, etc.

Although I love Marie Kondo and her method, I did personally choose to adapt it for our closet and its capacity to house our clothes. We don’t all have the drawer space to store our folded clothes in dressers. For that reason, I believe we have to be realistic with what our spaces can offer. I personally chose to hang all my dresses and tops together as well as my pants. The rest, I fold and organize in my dresser.

Picture of my hanging clothes in my closet all in colour order.

What kind of space do you have?

You need to assess what kind of drawer space you have and how you want to utilize it. You can use the drawers of a dresser (possibly one that you’ve recently given a refresh with chalk paint wink!), drawers of a nightstand or of a TV cabinet in your master bedroom. Before you start choosing where everything goes, think of your routine and where clothing items need to be in order to make is easier for you.

Do you have to walk butt naked in front of a window when you get out of the shower to get to your underwear? Would you maybe want them to be closer so that you wouldn’t have to do that? These are the types of questions you should be asking yourself before deciding where each item is going to go.

Once that is done, it’s time to show you how to fold your clothes and organize them in their “home”.

Undergarments (Underwear & Bras)

Folding Undergarments

When you are in a lingerie store, have you ever noticed how everything looks so pretty and well displayed? The purpose of folding your underwear and undergarments is exactly that. When you will open your drawer, you will see everything at a glance and feel like you are in a store choosing a piece. This will make a positive difference in your mood, I can assure you.

Here is how you can go about folding your underwear and bras to save space and see everything at a glance when you open your drawer.

Graphic of how to fold panties and boxers following the Kon Mari method.

Graphic of how to fold bras following the Kon Mari method.

If these graphics and videos don’t speak to you, you can always look up other videos on YouTube of the KonMari method, there are plenty.

Organizing Undergarments

Another tip that Marie Kondo mentions with her method is that similar colours should be grouped together and then ranked from dark to light. Like a rainbow you might ask? Yes! That’s exactly it! It will not only be visually stimulating but also very practical when looking for something in particular.

Picture of my bras and underwear drawer.

You don’t need to but, you are more than welcome to use baskets or containers to group your items together and have a dedicated space for them in your drawer. To do so, you don’t need to break the bank. You can re-use household items to organize like empty tissue or shoe boxes. You could even cut out cardboard dividers with empty cereal boxes. You could also go all out and use sturdy, good-quality bins to organize your drawer. That’s entirely up to you.

Socks

Folding Socks

I had this ah-ah moment when I was reading Marie-Kondo’s books when it came to socks. She mentions that rolling our socks inside out to pair them together is actually very hard on the elastic (duh! why didn’t I realize this before?!). For that reason, she encourages you to fold them which will make them actually last longer. Here is how you go about doing that.

Graphic of how to fold socks following the Kon Marie method.

Organizing Socks

Organizing them is up to you. I personally like to sort them by type (cotton, nylon, etc.) and then place them in order of colour going from dark to light.

To divide my types of socks in my drawer, I use empty tissue boxes with the tops cut off. They just so happen to fit perfectly in my dresser.

Picture of how I use empty tissue boxes to organize the different types of socks I have.

Pajamas

Folding Pajamas

The method to fold pajama tops and bottoms is the same as the ones for shirts and pants. You mainly want to achieve the shape of a rectangle to then fold your piece so that you can stand it up.

Graphic of how to fold camisoles following the Kon Mari method.

Graphic of how to fold trousers/pants & shorts following the Kon Mari method.

Organizing Pajamas

To organize my pajamas, I used the lid of an old shoe box to separate my pajama tops and bottoms within my drawer. I’ve mainly done this to keep things tidy, but also because this pajama drawer also stores my summer shorts. I wanted to make sure that my clothing items would stay in their lane.

Picture of how I used the lid of an old show box to divide my pajama bottoms from my pajama tops.

Workout Clothes

Folding Workout Clothes

I’m a big fan of workout/comfy clothes so I’ve personally dedicated a whole drawer to them. For that reason, I’ve made sure to fold all my pieces following the KonMari method to gain as much space as I could. The same here applies as for shirts and pants as far as folding.

Organizing Workout Clothes

I’ve organized each type of workout clothes and have grouped them together in my drawer. This makes it easier to find the item I want. I’ve grouped my legging together (on the left), my jogging pants together (middle), sport bras (middle) together and my tops (on the right).

Storing Seasonal Clothes

If you don’t want any seasonal clothes in the way of the ones you wear daily, you can always store them seperatly. If you choose to do so, make sure to group clothing items for a season all together so you don’t lose track of what you have.

I’ve personally decided to keep everything out and to not store seasonal items. Instead, I store items that I don’t use as much like bathing suits and accessories like clutches and belts up high in our closet. That way, all my clothing related items are together in our closet.

Picture of the top of my closet where I have baskets to store my formal accessories and swim suits.

The goal of folding clothes in such a way that looks pretty is that it will be motivating for you. Opening a drawer to find clothes won’t feel like a burden anymore. It’s important to have a vision of what you want your drawers to look and feel like. It should be your goal to achieve that vision of yours.

I also happen to find this great website called JujuSprinkles that has beautiful graphics that you can purchase to display and have handy as a guide to folding clothes. She has created many great resources so make sure to check it out!

I know that I’ve mainly gone over the process for adult clothing, but these rules and technics can easily apply to Organizing Kids Clothes as well. You don’t have to organize your dresser exactly how I did it. Find what works for you. If you want to fold your clothes in a different way, go ahead! I won’t be mad, I promise. I sincerely hope that this blog post has motivated you to start the process and feel well equipped to achieve your goal.