Unless you live in San Diego, where the climate is virtually the same year-round, every spring and fall you switch your wardrobe to adapt to warmer or cooler weather. You take out and put away (or not) seasonal clothing, footwear, and sports equipment. Here are a few ideas to keep some sense of order in this exchange.

* If possible, designate the closet or hallway closest to the entrance door for current outerwear and gear only. Soon it will be winter jackets and coats, warm gloves and hats, boots, perhaps ice skates and snow pants. Raincoats and light jackets that can be worn during any season stay there all the time. Add a few hooks for umbrellas, baseball hats and other items.

* If you can, designate a second closet in the house as the home for off-season clothes and equipment. Before putting away your summer things, make sure they are clean and repaired. (We use the area under the basement stairs, Hubby nailed a board across the opening with notches for hanges and it’s low enough the boys can reach it)

* Use big plastic storage bins to hold baseball gloves, flip-flops, bathing suits, beach towel, and other items you won’t need until next spring. The bins should be waterproof, mouse-proof, moth-proof, and stackable. (I use a duffel bag to store all of our swimming gear; suits, goggles, toys, swim shoes, towels, etc. Sometimes, during the winter, we rent a hotel room for the night just so we can spend a day in the pool)

* If you have growing children, use these semi-annual swaps as a time to set aside outgrown clothes and other things you can’t use. Give them away, consign them, sell them-do anything but keep them, or you will be awash in useless stuff before you know it. (We donate them to Goodwill; they put people to work)

* You could roll up your summer clothes and store them under a bed in a zippered snowboard bag.

“A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.” ~ Samuel Smiles (1875)