Didn't EVERYONE in 2020?? From the chatter here I think most did. "Clean out" and remove coats is not the same thing in my world. DH has a trove of coats that get swapped for the seasons. We eliminated all unused coats i.e. our offspring's old coats as they got their own houses. The Church garage sales that happen quarterly in our world keep us from these hidden treasures. DH recently wore one of the three letterman jackets that are still here on our evening walk. It garnered a lot of attention. The offered opinion is we could sell them in a NY minute!

We do not have entrance halls and we do not have coat closets. We have broom closets, if that counts, but we do not hang coats there.

I do not own what one would call a coat, but I do have a nice new jacket that I bought last March in Paso Robles. I have one jacket at each house, and I keep another jacket in the car, in case we happen to drive to the mountains and I forget to take one.

Sheila, that is hilarious. Nice how your DH has to use.

Our foyer closet is dedicated to DH., his coats and a wide assortment of hoodies.

Downstairs guest room is another story. Packed with clothing from high school and beyond.

During the pandemic oldest our NY home while we stayed in Florida.. . She posted a fashion show of herself “twinning” various celebrities wearing the styles from the 80’s and 90’s.

That closet needs another purging. Yes, we did do it once.

Nope. Geez, we’ve only lived here 4 years! LOL

Yes, usually at least once a year. Part of spring cleaning. The winter stuff gets it's attention before being put away, rest of the stuff comes out for a check over/air out and warm weather prep if needed. I'm pretty sure my husband does not clean his hall closet off his office. I know I haven't in a long time.

I have a front door closet and a mudroom from the garage that has coat hooks and storage for gloves and toques and stuff. The front door closet is used for company coats and our off season jackets and coats and to store a table leaf.

What’s in the mudroom changes throughout the year. It goes from heavy winter jackets and boots, to hoodies, to windbreakers, sandals and sunhats. We use it all the time.

One of the spare bedroom closets is jam packed with winter coats, halloween costumes and suitcases. I only look in there to take out the suitcases.

I don’t really clean out my front door closet but things do get rotated in and out of it throughout the year.

I don't have a hall closet, or indeed much of a hall. We do have a row of coat hooks but we can see what's there. No surprises.

Yes, I’ve cleaned ours out and need to do it again. The jackets, umbrellas and luggage are fine, but the shelves in back are pretty jammed. We have 4 other closets down the hallway that could use some editing, especially the one that contains seasonal decor.🥴

I have two front foyer closets....one I think is set up for the vacuum etc. or maybe hats and scarves? No rod but many hooks and its quite small - little more narrow at one end which makes it somewhat triangular. It does make a good place to hide the vac for this end of the house where its convenient along with all its accessories, dusting supplies etc. There is a coat closet two steps farther which I have cleaned twice in the last 10 years - for reason of it needing to be empty. Right now its primed inside but still needs paint. My plumber was looking for an easy way to reach the shower plumbing in the guest bath and it was through the back of that closet. I asked him to leave it in a way the plumbing could be accessed again if ever needed and he roughly screwed in a piece of drywall, left it pretty bad. I love my plumber but he is not a finish carpenter ;).

After knowing it was badly patched for a couple of years, I was at my SILs one day when her handy man was there. I asked him to come over and improve it. He redid the opening, trimmed it out so that it almost looks like big picture frame - quite acceptable and still removable. Coats went back in for the second time but I haven't gotten to the paint yet.

There is a mudroom at this office end of the house that has coats we are not wearing and probably will not wear along with rain hats, rain coats that we use. That could use some attention.

Little story, but my SIL went to dinner with a mutual friend one night and took along a black coat she was planning to offer to the waitress who she'd developed a friendly relationship with - eating there often. She had been trying to track down the owner for weeks and weeks, it wasn't one of hers and didn't fit her. As she got out the coat out of the car to gift the waitress, invited friend said 'that's my coat!' I've been looking for it for ages....:)' It went home with its rightful owner.

I did this around 3 weeks ago. Our closet was much like Bpath describes. I stripped it down to bare bones. Some things removed included a number of baseball caps, box of tween books my grandkids have already outgrown, a rather large assortment of fireworks and DS's heavy oiled full length duster he wore to high school in the 90s. Two sets of binoculars, a carousel tray of old slides and a slide projector.

I washed the walls and floor, and DH primed and painted. This closet is now my personal coat closet. I am always cold in fall and winter so have a lot of coats for different temps. I washed and re-waterproofed my 3 riding raincoats and washed my warmest barn jackets. Put them in breathable clothing bags and put shoulder dust covers on stuff I might still wear off season. Reconditioned my muck boots, two pairs and my rain boots. They went on the floor of the closet in in their original boxes. I still have the top shelf and 3/4 of the floor left. I have a lot of boots and have them in cardboard boot boxes with index sized cards IDing them. Lots of Bear Paws and motorcycle boots. I seldom wear shoes. It's boots or sandals. My western boots and riding boots will not go there. Those are a bit too ripe for my pristine new storage space.

Putting all my stuff in one place allowed DH to have a short wall of extra hanging space in our walk in closet for his jackets. He only owns a handful. We took another short wall of the walk in, with all this reorganizing going on, and switched the hanging space there into a tower of shelves. We redid that closet years ago adding drawers and shelves. The new shelve adjoin an existing unit.

Now I have a saddle in the living room that just arrived. We may need an addition to the house. LOL

I've been there 9 years and I cleaned it once to paint it. It just holds light fall to heavy winter coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, and the vacuum. There are some winter scarfs that could go, but it's only me so they will probably stay put.

Mine is mostly Halloween decorations that go outside of the house and my Christmas wreath. I think there are also some parts of the kids' old costumes from years ago. About two months ago while searching for my sewing box, I found a paper envelope full of seeds I bought in 2010. I've used some in my garden this year, hoping I'd get a few sprouts from them. Some of the onion seed have sprouted. I planted some pumpkin that I can't find any information on when I did a search of Baker creek seeds, where I bought them. Will be interesting if they sprout and what the pumpkins look like.

Anyone old enough to remember Fibber McGee's closet? As a genetically-imprinted pack-rat (second cousin to hoarder), I am far too terrified to open the closet. Been here 25 years and who knows what dangers lurk in there???...... =)

What timing! I just cleaned our's a couple of days ago. The doorknob didn't stay latched, and our cat, Kazoo, kept opening the door, going in there and doing bad things. Very bad things. I had to clean and/or air out all of our coats, shoes and boots. Also had to throw out some shoes that got a direct hit. Washed the closet floor with bleach and left an air freshener, too. And most importantly, got the doorknob fixed.

roxanna, I had to look up Fibber McGee’s closet!

Also, I’m impressed with anyone who paints the inside of a closet. I ’ve painted my mudroom before but never the inside of a closet.

Roxol, its a great spring cleaning inspiration - painting the inside of a closet. Who puts unneeded cluttery things back into a bright clean space - a real closet fresh start that works for clothes editing, linens, even Chistmas wrappings and decorations.

There is a room of closets, reading space, entrance to a little master bedroom deck right before you reach our bedroom. I suspect someone had been keeping luggage on the top shelf in one of them. I don't necessarily practice what I preach, I've been looking at scuff marks there for 10 years.

LOL, morz!

I started thinking about cleaning out the closet jampacked with winter coats only to open it and be reminded that I did a clothing donation last fall. 😁 I couldn’t part with my viking helmets, though.

I’ve had the house repainted a few times and even then, I am not motivated enough to move my stuff out of them to allow the painters to get in them. They’re still all a basic beige colour inside. Actually, looking at them, they’re not too bad.

This one is strictly Christmas and Canada Day BBQ stuff.

Bedding stuff closet

Front door, which only gets tidied if company is coming

Bedroom

Mudroom

Our current home doesn't have a front hall OR a front hall/coat closet!

Lola, when we built our house about twenty years ago, one of the few things I insisted on was lots of closets! And no bifold doors. One of my favourite things is the broom closet in the kitchen.

We needed to have a front door closet, especially in winter, when company shows up in parkas, toques and boots.

No front foyer closet here either. I did design a huge coat, laundry basket & storage closet for our laundry room, though. Conveniently next to the door to our attached garage. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I’ve added cleaning it out to my To-Do List. Ugh, but thank you!

One of our hall ”closets” must have been used for a water heater at one point since there’s a cabinet above it with a vented door. At some point it was converted for storage. It’s a perfect home for our upright and canister vacuums.

Wondering if a front door closet is more of a northern thing? The 1950s built houses I've lived in here do not have one, but do have a large hall closet in the center of the house, which is where raincoats and winter coats/jackets go - along with the vacuum, the Xmas tree, and miscellaneous storage boxes and garment bags of woolens and 'good' clothes..

I haven't cleaned ours out in decades, and keep meaning to do so. It definitely needs repainting.

Last time I cleaned, painted and reorganized our linen closet, hubby (for some unknown reason) decided to re-rearrange it a few weeks later and it's a total mess now 😟

carol, I think it could be. Along with full basements.

I grew up in a 1910 built home and it had both. Most of my friends homes did as well.

I wish I had a front hall coat closet. Actually, any closet.

“We live in southern California where coats are worn less frquently than elsewhere…”

Same with us, sheilajoyce. Our front hall closet just has lightweight jackets, and It’s been rare we’ve ever used it for guests’ coats.

In our first house, the front hall closet was cedar-lined! In our second house, it was super-deep and things tended to get lost in the back. In my condo now, it functions as DH's coat closet, as well as for overflow from the nearby kitchen--all those tall items that don't fit into the cabinets. We put some stand-alone cubby thingies in there. I empty it on a semi-regular basis to vacuum and rearrange.

This house originally had one one small closet, in what is now our all-purpose room: dining, office, food prep, etc. As a very small house, it does have an entry hall of sorts and I imagine when it was built there would have been a wardrobe, hatrack, or hall tree in there. Now though, it is sort of wasted space in a house that needs more useable space. A slice of the entry hall was taken to build a narrow stairwell to a new second story, and beneath the stairs the floor was cut to add stairs to the basement from inside the house.

We added a coat rack to the basement door, so that's the closest we have to a front hall closet. We also have a very small secretary that used to serve as a phone table, but now holds items that are bound for somewhere else-- like the voltage tester to return to the neighbor, a book that needs to be carried upstairs, a package to take to the post office, reusable bags for the grocery. Oh, there are also bars of soap in the cubbies of the secretary.

Two of my neighbors still have the original layout of the small entry room. Both of them use the rooms as tiny parlors, but to me, they give a feeling of being rushed. Have a quick seat but don't get comfortable; state your business; the door back out is right there by your shoulder; no need to come into the real living room; hurry up now. Neither has any kind of coat storage in the entry. The space is really odd in all our houses.

I knew I had painted the one closet about 15 years ago. Just opened it to see that I had used the same white paint our wood trim has. Yeah, that closet is a mess.

I wallpapered the bathroom closet at my mother's house when I redid her bathroom.

Our house has a large entry hall and a small coat closet. The only things in that closet that I don't need are my old raccoon coat (where to donate that?) and a baseball cap that says UBER. One of DS's pals from HS designed the caps years before Uber.