Ask Miss Caro-chan: Making The Most Out Of Storage Space

Today's Ask Miss Caro-chan comes from College Frill, she asks:

I've recently received news of getting a roomate after a semester of only me. Now, I'm having to move my things around in my new found, smaller space. What would you suggest as a good space saver in a dormitory? Would a steamer trunk work for my sewing and Lolita things?

It really all depends on how much sewing stuff and Lolita you've got. If you only have a few dresses and a few yards of fabric, I would say to go for it, but beware that steamer trunks take up a lot of room and might not hold a whole lot. If you want a new steamer trunk, it's probably going to cost you a pretty penny, typically around $100. An antique one is going to be a bit cheaper if you hunt around at yard sales, but unless you put some work into it and refinish the inside and scrub the living daylights out of it, I wouldn't keep my clothes in there. This is coming from experience as my mom is an avid collector of antiques and has several antique steamer trunks. We mostly keep books and old VHS tapes in them as they tend to be rather musty and the lining tends to crumble. Not exactly the ideal place to keep hundreds of dollars worth of clothes. But, if you don't mind the cost, and don't have a whole lot of clothes to fit in it, a new steamer trunk would be a very lovely place to store your Lolita wardrobe.

If you have a bit more clothes, and are looking for something a little cheaper, you might want to consider a clothing rack. They are, sadly, not as pretty as a steamer trunk, but they do hold a lot of clothes, are rather compact, and they are cheap (about $30-$40). Make sure to get a sturdy one though, as Lolita clothes tend to be very heavy. There are several things you can do to clothing racks to lolify them a bit, you can start by spray painting it a color to match your wardrobe, maybe baby blue or deep burgundy. Wrap the sides of the rack with ribbons or fake flowers. If you can, suspend a bed canopy to the ceiling above it to keep dust off your clothes. If you can't, or just don't want to, attach a bed canopy to your ceiling, you can drape one over your clothes rack, or even use a pretty lace table cloth. In my bedroom, I have a wooden clothes rack that I cover with a lace table cloth with a Virgin Mary design on it.

If you have even less space to keep your clothes, go in search of some under-bed storage boxes. You can easily find the clear tupperware kind, but if you want something a little prettier, look for the sturdy cardboard ones. Find it in a pretty print, or even plain and decorate it yourself with paint, decoupage, or with fabric scraps.

If you have lots of accessories, invest in a few hatboxes. Hat boxes can be easily stacked on top of one another somewhere out of the way. Decorate these to your hearts content so they look pretty, and not just like a stack of boxes.

There are lots of ways to store your clothes if you don't have a huge walk in closet! You just have to get a bit creative sometimes, and be willing to let either the clothes, or the storage containers they are in, to be displayed out in the open. With Lolita this isn't usually too much of a problem, as the clothes are pretty enough to put on display!