Six Handy Home Organization Tips for Chilly Colorado Winters

The weather outside is indeed frightful, and you or your kids might have come down with a case of the sniffles. You know you have some cold medication in the medicine cabinet. You go in there­–admittedly for the first time in a while–and find a half-empty bottle of medication. You’re just about to pour some cold remedy into the little plastic cup when you see the expiration date: two years ago.

Now, the expiration date on drugs isn’t like that on bread. According to Harvard Health, the expiration date tells you the period in which the drug will be most potent. So sure, your meds might still work, depending on how long ago the expiration date was, but they won’t work well.

Medication isn’t cheap, so you don’t want to waste it. In this case, you’ll probably have no choice but to throw the cold medicine away. In the future though, you can ensure you won’t have a hard time finding your newest medications because you’ll have cleaned out your medicine cabinet.

This is one of those nooks in the home that can easily get overlooked, as out of sight is often out of mind. To organize your cabinet now, open it up and take everything out. Toss all expired medications, ointments, creams, and other treatments. If anything is going to expire soon, put those medications in the front of your cabinet and the ones that will expire last towards the back.

Then­–most importantly–don’t forget there’s medicine in there! At least one other time during the year, you want to go back into the medicine cabinet, check all the dates, and reorganize if necessary.

Colorado isn’t exactly known for its balmy, sticky, humid summers, but you undoubtedly own several pairs of shorts, tees and tanks, and maybe a summer dress or several for the ladies. Once you get into September, you can hold onto your t-shirts, perhaps the odd pair of cargo shorts, but you’ve stopped wearing the rest of your summer garb. By October, where temperatures of around 60 degrees Fahrenheit are common, according to Weather.com, even the t-shirts disappear. By the time you get into November and December, where average highs are between 40 and 50 degrees, you need to have replaced your wardrobe.

Since you don’t have much else to do on this cold, uneventful day, don’t just take all your summer clothes out and set them aside, but go through them. Maybe there are a few things you’ve held onto because you hope they’ll come back into style. If you haven’t worn those capris or that tank top in two years, you likely aren’t going to.

The good thing is now you have a chance to give to those in need by donating your clothes, provided they’re in good condition of course. All the rest of your summer clothes that you plan to keep can go in storage bins until next May or June.

As you unveil your cozy cardigans, thick cable-knit sweaters, and comfortable hoodies, keep that same discerning eye on your wardrobe. Sparefoot.com recommends putting clothing aside that you don’t really wear and think about donating it. Otherwise, these winter clothes will just take up room in your drawers or your bedroom closet.

You can’t remember the last time you’ve started your car in the morning without it thawing first. It’s definitely winter alright, and with the cold season comes the need for many accessories. From your heavy-duty snow shovels to snow salt and scrapers, it’s better if this stuff is inside than out. This way, when Colorado next gets blanketed in snow, you won’t have to go outside and shiver until you can retrieve your snow shovel.

What does your current storage closet situation look like? You probably have household items like a broom, a mop, maybe your vacuum cleaner in there, right? You can’t necessarily get rid of these items, so it’s all about how you organize. 

For instance, do you have shoes that migrated from the hall closet to the storage closet? Keep reading for what to do about that. Perhaps you put storage buckets full of who only knows what in this closet. This was just supposed to be a temporary measure, then life happened.

No matter what’s currently in your storage closets, take everything out. Then see if you can find a place for these things elsewhere. Now that you’re actively tackling home organization, you may have more space than you did before. If not, then you have to store what’s in there more efficiently. To that end, hangers, racks, and dividers can help.



Do make sure that once the seasons shift and the last snow has melted that you move these winter accessories out into the garage or down to the basement.

Shoes can take up a serious amount of closet space, especially if you’re an avid shoe collector or your closet just isn’t very big. There’s no reason to keep both your summer and winter shoes in the closet at once. You’re not wearing both at the same time of the year, and with so much clutter, all you’re doing is blocking access to the shoes you actually want to wear.

You can guess by now how to start organizing your shoe closet. Remove every last set of shoes, pairing them together. Next, go one by one and look at each pair. Maybe your style has changed and certain shoes don’t appeal to you anymore. Perhaps you thought you could repair the sole on your favorite running sneakers, but you just never got around to it.

Throw away the old or stinky shoes and see if you can donate everything else. Put your spring and summer footwear in a tote container, label it, and stash it in the basement or even in one of your closets if you have room.

Winter shoes are tough to organize since they’re typically so much bulkier. To prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed, here are a few ideas. First, do what you’ve been doing this entire time. Go through your winter shoes and decide if certain pairs are falling apart past reasonable use or just aren’t shoes you like anymore.



A shoe rack or shoe fence will also come very much in handy here. You can organize your shoes in such a way where you can see every pair. That makes it easy to reach for the pair of shoes you want rather than wasting 10 or 15 minutes of your day digging for that second winter boot.

Now it’s time to tackle the hall closet. This is one of those closets in the home where a lot of things can disappear into, sometimes never to be seen again. Well, it’s time to go into the dark recesses of your hall closet and empty everything that’s in there.

If you have unrelated items that should be somewhere else, start there. The board game your family played on the last game night should be in the kids’ room. That blanket you pulled out on movie night is supposed to go upstairs.

Once you put away all unrelated items, organize what should go in your hall closet. You will need a lot of spare room in the closet, as you’re about to add puffy coats, knit hats and gloves, and thick mittens and scarves. If you can, at least go through all your winter coats and see if any have holes or other damage. You might want to reconsider putting these coats in the closet right now. Perhaps you can get the coat repaired or it might be time for a replacement. Like before, you might want to think about adding some organizers, racks, dividers, or some other system to help. 



When you organize your hall closet, make sure you go back in every few weeks to ensure it stays organized. The kids might toss their gloves on the floor or let their coats slip off the hangers. Tidy up before things get lost!

Depending on where you are in the winter, the seasonal holidays already passed or will soon be coming up. Either way, you can waste so much time scurrying about the house looking for this and that that you end up creating undue holiday stress. 



If you’re pre-holidays, taking a room you don’t use much and designating it as the holiday room is a great idea. You can keep all of your décor, bows, extra holiday cards, and gift wrap here. If you’re in that post-holiday time, then having everything in one room makes it easier to begin disassembling décor and putting things away.

Colorado winters can be brutal. You’ll spend more time indoors, which makes you realize how disorganized your house has become. With the tips in this article, you’re ready to tackle organization projects big and small for a home that feels cleaner and happier!

Sources

• https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything
• https://www.weather-us.com/en/colorado-usa-climate
• https://www.sparefoot.com/self-storage/blog/21635-5-decluttering-organizing-projects-winter/