The Best Way to Fold Your Shirts

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Last weekend, we took a giant reprieve from all of the holiday hustle and bustle and just chilled for a bit on Saturday afternoon. This, probably not the wisest of choices, led me to the usual all out panic that ensues the week before Christmas as I realized I had so much left to do before the big day. So instead of planning, shopping, and wrapping I decided it seemed like the perfect time to organize my husbands t-shirt drawer; because…priorities. Don’t think for a second though that this was all in vain because let me tell you friends, I was actually shocked with what I discovered.

Wouldn’t it be cruel if I just ended this post there and left you wondering what on earth I’d uncovered in my husbands t-shirt drawer? Maybe you were hoping to hear I’d found the key to eternal youth or something more sinister. Well sorry to disappoint, but it really only had to do with laundry. What I found my friends, if you haven’t left me, is that there were not, as it had seemed, fifty shirts crammed into his drawer, but instead, fifteen. I found that if I changed the way I folded his shirts, I could open up so many possibilities (maybe one day I could hide the key to eternal life there). Seriously though, I was actually amazed at what a difference the before and after was.

So, the before isn’t totally bad, but believe me when I tell you, these drawers are huge and they could barely close. If you know about me, you know that over the last couple of years I have become a bit of a minimalist. Several months ago, I finally read, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo (click here to get your copy) and I decided to take my tidiness to the next level. It even inspired me to open a new feature of my blog and I started tidy + STYLE a local Pro Organizing and Decluttering side gig. In the book she goes to great lengths to tell you to stop folding clothes (or start for some of you) the way you always have. She says the way you have been folding your shirts, pants, etc isn’t the supreme way to create the best use of function and space in your dresser drawers. When I set out to change the way I folded my husbands shirts, I didn’t plan on making a blog post out of this, but it was so inspiring I thought I needed to share. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about getting your head right and your home tidy that I was afraid borderlined on snarky, so I thought this would be a way of redemption by actually offering you a how-to.

Step One | Lay the shirt front side down. Quickly smooth out wrinkles.

Step Two | Fold in half long ways. Then fold the arm back over.

Step Three | Repeat on the other side. Smooth.

Step Four | Fold the bottom of the shirt up to the top of the collar.

Step Five | Repeat step four.

Here’s where the laundry gets really beautiful. If you fold your shirts this way, guess what they can do? They can stand up. Yes, you heard right. You can take this beautifully folded shirt and stand it (aka stack it) in your drawer just like so.

Would ya look at that? No longer is the drawer about to spill its guts onto the hardwood, but the shirts are all lined up and would you just look at the amount of space left over?! Another thing I should point out is how easy it is to find the shirt you want when they are folded this way. Traditionally we put one shirt on top of the other and without digging (and messing up our folded clothes) we can’t see what’s underneath. Not anymore!

This is ALL of his shirts. Can you believe that’s all there really was? I couldn’t either. I even went ahead and added his shorts to the drawer to try and fill in the space, but there is still extra room. I couldn’t believe it either. Can you imagine how much this could change the space you have to store your things? Would you be willing to change the way you fold if it made this much of a change?