Change of Seasons - Change of Wardrobe

Hello all.  It's been freezing over the last week, so I decided it was time to pack up and store my summer clothes and get out all my heavier winter knits and skirts.  I live in a smallish flat and all my clothes don't fit in my wardrobe and chest of drawers, so I rotate the between winter and summer (with staple clothes remaining out all year round).  I long to have a dressing room, or walk-in wardrobe, but unfortunately it's not to be at the moment.  I thought I'd do a little post of how I store my clothes during their off-season.

Firstly I took all my summer dresses, skirts, cardies, t-shirts, tops and jeans out of the wardrobe and drawers - it was bulging!

I then folded them up with a little help from one of my cats (Mrs P). 

I bought some vacuum bags from Somerfield a couple of years ago, and I've reused them several times.  They were a bargain - only £1!  I think you can buy similar bags from Lakeland Plastics.  They're great as the really shrink down loads, therefore saving space.  They also protect your clothes from dust and moths. I put all my clothes in the bags, use a little gadget thinimejig to close them, stick in the hoover and...

Voila - much smaller bags of clothes.

I stacked up the bags in an Ikea box and put them under the bed.

I then thought I'd put away my summer shoes, as I'm running out of shoe storage space.  I have a massive hamper basket I won in a raffle years ago.  About two years ago, it was absolutely stuffed with moisturisers, soaps and perfumes.  But I've really been trying to use them up - look at it now - almost empty!  All the perfumes are in the Ghost box, but there aren't many of them left either.

I decided to move the remaining products into my normal beauty storage and free up the hamper.  They  fitted, and there was plenty of room to store my shoes in the hamper.

I washed and ironed (where necessary) all my winter knits and they are now hanging in a much less bulging wardrobe.  However, as I store all my clothes in the vacuum bags, I didn't get my work skirts dry cleaned before storing them - these are all the skirts that need to take to the cleaners!

Luckily I get my coats dry cleaned in the spring, so they're all stored in the coat cupboard in plastic bags, so I don't need to do anything to them. It's not so bad when I get out my winter stuff, there's not too much ironing.  I dread getting out all my summer clothes again next year, as everything needs a proper iron! It takes forever!

Do you have enough space for all your clothes, or do you need to store stuff away too?

Thanks for reading! xx