Say Goodbye To Messy Drawers: IKEA Has A Solution For Keeping Clothes Organized

Maintaining organized dresser drawers is ideal for efficiency and visual order, but ensuring that your items stay neatly folded isn't always realistic. When you're looking for that particular shirt, it's common to rifle through your folded shirts in search of it, leaving a mess of jumbled laundry in its wake. Fortunately, there's a creative use of the IKEA OSTBIT Plate holder that will aid in preserving your drawers' tidiness.

While the OSTBIT Plate holder ($5.99) is marketed as a way to maintain order in your kitchen cabinets, it's an open-ended tool, which makes it useful in numerous ways (such as tidying up your cluttered closet on a budget). An Instagram content creator, @doitonadime, shows how the OSTBIT brings order to her dresser drawers in a short video. She lines up several of the plate holders, oriented vertically in the drawer so as to fit multiple ones, then places neatly folded shirts in between each slot. The result is a visually soothing, tidy drawer that simplifies retrieving a shirt without disrupting neighboring items. Although the video shows the OSTBIT in action for shirts, you could also use it for storing yoga leggings, shorts, or other thin, compact bottoms. To make the items fit especially neatly in the available slots, try Nate Berkus' simple clothes folding technique for perfectly organized drawers. The OSTBIT itself is a highly reviewed product, with customers giving it a 4.7-star average from more than 1,000 reviews. Customers love the appearance, quality, and performance of this versatile organizer.

Before you rush to IKEA and pick up the OSTBIT Plate holder for your drawers, be sure to measure your drawers to confirm they will fit. It measures 11 inches long by 5 inches wide by 3 inches high, so it should accommodate many dresser drawers. That being said, it will best serve those whose drawers open fully enough to access all of the holder's slots. It is worth noting that while this hack is clever, it might not work well for larger clothing items if a garment cannot be folded down small enough to fit within the dimensions of the slots.

If you're craving order in other spaces of the home, consider installing a few of the plate holders in your young children's drawers; this can help them to easily find their favorite shirt without undoing all of your folding efforts. For children who are still young but old enough to dress themselves, try pre-pairing a shirt, bottoms, undergarments, and socks into a neatly folded bundle, then slide the outfit into an OSTBIT slot to simplify their morning routine.

Outside of bedroom dresser applications, you can also organize your kitchen drawers in a flash with the OSTBIT. One customer review on IKEA's website states, "I used this to hold my hand towels and wash rags. It looks so much nicer than just folded." Another reviewer writes, "You don't realize how helpful they are until you start using them all over your house." If more orderly drawers are on your wishlist, testing out the OSTBIT for this application could be a worthwhile endeavor.