Higher Hangers

Create More Closet Space

• What: Higher Hangers
• When: Storage space is tight
• Why: Make better usage of existing closets
• Where: Higher Hangers or The Container Store

Are you tight on closet space? Looking to fit more clothes into the same amount of space without expensive and time consuming renovations? Check out these Higher Hangers, which use a space-saving design to eliminate unused space and create more storage.

I got my first batch of these hangers to address a specific closet issue. We inherited a giant wardrobe with hanging space above and wonderful deep drawers with doors when we moved into our new house. But I quickly discovered that the hanging space left a lot to be desired. I have no idea how the previous owners used the space. At 31 inches in height, no clothes could hang without resting on the bottom of the space. That left them wrinkled or frequently caught in the doors.

While I pondered who had designed such a thing and what they could have possibly used it for, it occurred to me how much space my hangers took up. I knew I couldn’t move the closet rod higher because then hangers wouldn’t fit over the top. (I have tried many things in the past, some of which didn’t work out so well.) So I turned to the internet looking for shorter hangers. Lo and behold, someone brilliant has already solved this problem and made their solution widely available.

Enter Higher Hangers. These sturdy wooden hangers use a shorter neck paired with a slightly altered angle to insure clothes stay put. More importantly, for those of us with space challenges, they save multiple inches of hanging space. If you have a full closet, these extra inches might go towards adding a second hanging closet rod. If, like me, you’re stuck with an oddly short space, it makes all the difference between leaving hems and long sleeves to puddle and clothes that hang straight. If you share a room with your young child, using these hangers allows you to add a closet rod lower down for their clothes.

While the ones I bought don’t have a lower bar on them (so no hanging pants or skirts under tops), they save so much space I don’t care. You can also get ones with the lower attachment – if you can find a place that isn’t sold out. I got mine in packs of six for about $15. While that’s well above what I’d normally pay for hangers, it costs much less than replacing the furniture, buying new clothes consisting only of crop tops, or remodeling my house to make space for a true closet.