Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Wonder Hanger

One of my challenges as I have lost weight is finding clothes in my closet that fit. When it comes to pants, it really is hit or miss. For whatever reason, they must have all been varying degrees of tightness when I was larger. Since they don't all fit, I have been having a wonderful time shopping for a smaller size that fits me and (hopefully) flatters the new smaller me. The problem is that my closet has been growing increasingly more stuffed. Most of my shirts, suits and slacks that I wore before I still have - I can't really go out and buy a whole new wardrobe (although does What Not to Wear take self-nominations? I'm sure I look "great" in my oversized clothing) - but now, I have begun to add to it smaller clothes. As I continue to shop, my closet is reaching capacity.

Wonder Hanger

A few weeks ago, I was contacted about checking out Wonder Hangers. You know you've seen the infomercial - "triple your closet space". I am always a little skeptical about products on infomercials (although that is how P90X is sold and I LOVE IT!), so I thought it would be a great opportunity to give it a try.

Wonder Hanger

    "The Wonder Hanger® is an affordable tool that's great for any Spring Cleaning features. This cascading clothes organizer increases closet space by enabling you to stack clothes vertically. Each Wonder Hanger holds 5 wood, metal or plastic hangers. There are 8 hangers to a package – enough to hang 40 garments. The open-mouth design allows you to easily add or remove your jackets, skirts, pants and shirts. Supporting up to 20 pounds, it can hold up to 5 heavy winter jackets.

    You can use it to group complete outfits or similar items, organize by color or season, and hang handbags or belts. It retails for $9.99 and can be purchased at major retail chains including Walmart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and CVS and online at www.buywonderhanger.com."

    Price online is $9.99 plus P&H (Buy one, get one free; just pay extra P&H)

    You can watch a video here.


Let me start first by sharing my concerns with the product, none of which are insurmountable, just things that I hadn't really considered that upon use I felt obligated to share.

If your closet is stuffed, you can't just decide to add a few of these to closet. First, you must remove things from your closet. The hangar, when connected on both ends to the closet rod, takes up more space than the five hangers that it holds. Not a big deal - it's probably best to start an organization project by cleaning out your closet and getting rid of what you don't wear.

The hangers may very well triple your closet space, but you can't use all of the new found space. Again, in order to get most things back off of the hanger, you need to reconnect the second end. The item on the top and bottom (or left and right depending on your perspective) you can easily remove without reconnecting, but the others are sort of held in place by the clothes around them. Again, this a bad news/good news thing - you can fit more in your closet, just not a full 3x as much.

It only works on full height closet racks. This one is probably pretty obvious but I had never considered it before trying them. With many master closets and even some other bedroom closets, to maximize space, many people have one section that is full length and one section that has a top and bottom rack. With the top and bottom rack, there just isn't the space needed to accommodate the "drop" when you disconnect the one end and collapse the hanger. The good news is you are already getting more use for your space with the double racks, but you can't increase it with the Wonder Hanger.

That being said, it really does work. You can hang your clothes on it and disconnect the one end and store more stuff in less space. I think that for me, the most effective use of these hangers will be to tuck my out of season clothes off to the side and create more space for the items that I am currently wearing. This will allow me to increase the total amount that I can store in my closet. I suspect that allowing my clothes to be looser in my closet will also help minimize wrinkling. Shoving them in like I have been lately, has made for more ironing than normal.

The ad on TV seems to illustrate with thin blouses, but I even used it for the kids coats:
I will note that when using the hanger for bulkier clothes, like coats, the hanger does take up more space as it hangs at a greater angle than it does with thinner clothes, like blouses, where it can hang closer to vertical.

Giveaway
Would you like to give Wonder Hangers a try for free?

Courtesy of Wonder Hanger and MamaBzz, I have the opportunity to give away a pack of Wonder Hangers to one A Busy Mom of Two reader.

How to enter: Leave a comment sharing what your closet organization challenge is.

Additional Entries - Please leave a separate comment for each addition entry!:
1. Subscribe to A Busy Mom of Two via RSS or email.
2. Follow me on Twitter AND tweet about this giveaway. Leave a comment with a link to your tweet. This entry can be done daily.
3. Blog about this giveaway. Leave a comment with a link to your post.
4. Promote this giveaway another way, like Facebook. Leave a comment letting me know how you promoted this giveaway.
5. Add my button to your blog. (It’s on my sidebar to the right.) Leave a comment letting me know that you added it (or that it was already there!)

This contest will remain open until May 18th at 6 pm. Winner will be selected using random.org. The winner will be contacted by e-mail (be sure to leave one!) and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be selected.

No compensation was received for this post. I did receive one box of 8 Wonder Hangers, courtesy of Wonder Hanger through MamaBzz, in order that I might try the product and share my experiences.

21 comments:

Sarah J said...

My challenge is simple. Our closet is small!!!

sarahkayjordan@sbcglobal dot net

Anonymous said...

My challenge is that, when we moved, I went from a walk-in closet to a tiny, shallow closet that only holds about half of my clothes.

Anonymous said...

My challenge is shoes. I have entirely too many and can't find a good way to store them.

deborahcraft at yahoo dot com

Katie | FashionFrugality.com said...

My challenge is that I have no where to place folded clothes in my closet therefore I end up hanging everything up... andddd therefore I run out of space! :)
kkondek at gmail.com

Katie | FashionFrugality.com said...

Subscribed via google reader
kkondek at gmail.com

Katie | FashionFrugality.com said...

Tweet 5/2 http://twitter.com/ktkatherine/status/13258562485
Following you on twitter too!
kkondek at gmail.com

Jay said...

Our problem is too much stuff we just got rid of a garbage bag worth of clothes!
rbjj32825[at]lycos[dot]com

Lauragr said...

My challenge is that I have too much stuff in too small a space!

Lauragr said...

My challenge is that I have too much stuff in too small a space!

janetfaye said...

My challenge is my small bedroom closet. It is very hard to organize it.

janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com

janetfaye said...

I blogged:
http://blog-giveaways.blogspot.com/2010/05/busy-mom-of-two-wonder-hanger-giveaway.html

janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com

Hannah Q. Parris said...

I have only two tiny closets in our whole apartment, not near enough storage for 2 people. We look for anything to help us gain some space back!

Unknown said...

one side of my ceiling is sloping, which creates a difficult angle for me. it also has a low ceiling.

Unknown said...

follow you on twitter and tweeted

@bkscholar

Joseph said...

my closet is just so small, that is the problem. too many clothes!

adnormalthoughts(dot)blogspot(at)gmail(dot)com

janetfaye said...

Tweet:
http://twitter.com/Janetfaye/status/13703886661

janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com

Marsha Cooper said...

My closet being small is my challenge too.
(and we have some of these, but I'm hoping for a chance here to get some more)

Katie | FashionFrugality.com said...

Tweet 5/16 http://twitter.com/ktkatherine/status/14126424446
kkondek at gmail.com

Caroline said...

We have a really small closet in our master bedroom and I could use more space.

design4less(at)yahoo(dot)com

Katie | FashionFrugality.com said...

Tweet 5/17 http://twitter.com/ktkatherine/status/14185653853
kkondek at gmail.com

Anonymous said...

I just bought 2 sets of the Wonder Hanger and did not even get 2X more space. Reality is that 2 inches of fabric takes up 2 inches whether it is horizontal or somewhat vertical. I am hoping they will help with organization, but I do not see any advantage to more space being found.