Conquer the Clutter: Pro Folding Tips for a Tidy Chicago Home

Life in Chicago moves fast. Between work, family, and trying to enjoy everything the city has to offer, finding the time and energy to keep your home spotless can feel like a second job. We get it. That’s why we’re sharing some pro folding secrets to help you conquer clutter and make your space feel instantly more organized and peaceful.

We’ve all been there: you open a drawer or cupboard, and instead of neat order, you’re met with a jumbled mess that makes finding anything a chore. Often, the difference between chaos and calm comes down to knowing the right techniques. Let’s tackle some of the most common—and frustrating—folding challenges to help your drawers stay neat every single day.

Mastering the Chunky Sweater Fold

Thinner sweaters are easy, but those beautiful, bulky knits can be a nightmare. They feel slippery, bunch up, and never seem to hold their shape. The secret? It’s all about creating a rectangle.

The Step-by-Step Sweater Solution

First, address any unique necklines like turtlenecks or hoods. Fold the neck section down flat to create a more uniform top edge. Your goal is to transform the sweater into a square or rectangle, as these shapes are the easiest to fold neatly.

• Lay the sweater flat, concealing the neck.
• Fold one side of the body toward the center.
• Tuck the sleeve back neatly onto the body.
• Repeat on the other side, ensuring the edges are even.
• For the final fold, start from the bottom and fold upward in thirds, tucking the hem and sleeves into that first fold for a clean, compact rectangle.

This method works even for heavily tapered or A-line knits. Just adjust the initial folds to create straight lines. When storing, file your sweaters vertically in the drawer instead of stacking them. It’s a game-changer for visibility and neatness. For those days when even folding feels like too much, remember that a reliable cleaning service near me can handle the entire tidying process for you.

Taming the Polo Shirt

Polo shirts, with their stiff collars and buttons, require a slightly different approach. A pro tip? Always do the buttons up before you start. This helps maintain the collar’s structure.

• Button the shirt and fold the collar as it’s meant to lie.
• Flip the shirt onto its back and fold the sides inward, using the neckline as a guide.
• Fold each sleeve back neatly.
• Instead of a standard trifold, opt for smaller, more frequent folds until you reach the collar’s base.

The result is a crisp, stackable rectangle that looks store-bought. Keeping a wardrobe this organized is easier when you have a trusted partner for apartment cleaning to manage the broader mess.

The Bulky Comforter Dilemma

Let’s be honest: storing duvets and comforters is the worst. They’re bulky and never fold into a nice square. If possible, rethink your bedroom setup to avoid storing them seasonally. But if you must store one, here are two solutions.

Option 1: The Space-Saver Bag (For Non-Feather Fill)

For synthetic-filled comforters, use a vacuum-seal space bag. Place the comforter inside, seal it, and use a vacuum to remove all the air. It compresses to a flat, manageable size that’s easy to stash away, and it’s airtight and waterproof.

Option 2: The Original Bag (For Down Fill)

Never compress a down-filled comforter, as it can damage the feathers. Instead, store it in the breathable, durable bag it came in. These bags often have a clear side for visibility and a fabric back for airflow, making them the perfect, protective option. Dealing with seasonal bedding storage is just one part of a larger deep cleaning help project that can refresh your entire home.

Folding Adorable (and Tiny) Baby Clothes

Kid’s drawers can descend into chaos quickly. Using adjustable drawer dividers provides flexibility as your child grows. While tiny t-shirts and sweaters use the same folding principles as adult clothes, onesies are a unique challenge.

The Onesie Fold

Here’s a simple technique that works from newborn sizes on up:

• Lay the onesie flat and fold the diaper portion up into the center.
• Fold the sleeves inward onto each other to form a square.
• Perform a trifold, then fold it over once more to create a neat rectangle.
• File it vertically in the drawer for easy access.

Mastering these folds brings a small but real sense of accomplishment. A neatly organized drawer just feels better. And when you’re ready to take that organized feeling to the next level, a professional home cleaning can ensure every corner of your space matches that drawer’s perfection.

Your Path to a Permanently Tidy Home

Knowing how to fold properly is a powerful skill that makes daily life smoother. But maintaining a consistently clean and organized home in a busy city like Chicago often requires a helping hand. Whether you need a one-time reset or regular upkeep, having a professional team you can trust makes all the difference.

If the thought of tackling that overflowing laundry basket or reorganizing every closet feels overwhelming, you’re not alone. That’s where a dedicated Chicago cleaning company like Jikas Cleaning comes in. We offer fast cleaning services designed to fit your schedule and lifestyle. Don’t spend your weekend wrestling with comforters—instead, easily schedule a cleaning and reclaim your time.

Our expert teams are ready to provide the thorough cleaning services in Chicago you deserve. Stop searching for someone to clean my apartment and find a reliable partner in Jikas. Let us help you clean your apartment so you can focus on what matters most.

It takes a lot of time and effort and energy to fold your clothes correctly. And one of the most frustrating things is when you open a drawer and you see those effortful little piles messy. And it just comes down to knowing the right folding techniques so that your drawers and cupboards can look neat and tidy every single time. Now, I’ve done folding videos here on Clean MySpace before, and when I read the comments, I see a lot of people complaining about the same items. So, in this video, I’m going to cover some very common, challenging things to fold, including comforters, polos, sweaters, and baby clothes. So, if you fall into one of those categories with folding struggles, stick around. I’ve got your solutions. By the way, if you’re new here, my name is Melissa Maker. This is the Clean My Space channel. Welcome. It is my job to teach you how to get your cleaning done the most efficient and effective way the first time. So, if you want more of that in your life, make sure that you subscribe to the Clean MySpace channel. First up, the chunky sweater. Now, if you have a thinner sweater, they’re obviously very easy to fold. But as you get into the chunkier knits, you might feel concerned because, you know, as you fold them, they can be bunchy or slippery and they won’t stay in shape. I’m here to tell you, look at this one. It can, it will. You just have to know the technique. Now, the other thing to know about sweaters is, you know, not all neck lines are created equal. Sometimes you might have a turtleneck, you might have a hood. The trick here, and I will actually show you on this beautifully folded turtleneck sweater, you just see what I did in reverse. The first thing you do is you conceal the weird neck. So, you’re going to fold it down. You always when you’re folding, and we’re going to talk about this in just about everything that we fold, you always want to create a square or a rectangle because that is the easiest thing to fold. So, now that I’ve got my neck folded down, if I had a hood, it would be the same thing. I have more of a square, it’s easier to fold. Next, I’m going to do the regular thing that you normally do. Fold in half of the body. Tuck the sleeve back over just like this. And when you do your fold, you want everything to be uniform and even from top to bottom. So you don’t want to have like a tapered triangle, which I realize I have a little bit of right now. You want it to be as uniform as possible in terms of its shape. You want to have a clean rectangle. And then with sweaters, I always like to fold, especially with chunky ones. And I’ll demo with this chunky one as well, so you can see exactly what I’m talking about. But I like when I whenever I do a fold, I always like to fold in thirds. The trick with the sweater is to fold from the bottom up. And you want to get the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater in your first third. But you can see here that I kind of cheated a little. It’s not an even third. It’s just a little one just to kind of tuck all of this bottom stuff in that we know gets messy. And then you’re going to do a dividing fold in half. Just like that. And as sure as the sky is blue, there you go. A beautifully folded sweater. Let me show you with this chunky one. So you know that I’m not just bibbing and using my easiest sweater to fold. Okay. So this one’s got a bit of a tapered in shape here. The knit is very thick. So you can see it’s going to be a bit of a job. The other thing to keep in mind is if you have this sort of tapered look or this sort of a-line situation going that you might have with a skirt, which would be the reverse of this. Again, you always want to fold everything so that you’re creating a square. So, you’ll see what I mean here. I’m folding a little bit more in on the top so that I have that straight line out here on the end. And trust me, once you try this for yourself, it’ll make perfect sense. All right, there we go. And I’m going to do the same thing. I’m going to get all of the bottom bits in at this small little tuck right here that I’m going to divide in half. And by the way, whenever I store sweaters, chunky knits like this in a drawer, I always file them, which is how I like to put most things in a drawer instead of putting them one on top of the other. So, the first tip that I learned from someone who is pretty much a pro golfer and holding this camera, um, is that all the buttons should be done off. So, that is super helpful and that makes sense because it keeps the collar stiff. The other thing I will suggest is that you fold the collar as it is intended to look on the wearer. Next thing I’m going to do is just flip it over onto its backside. So, goal number one, I’m going to get this in a rectangular form. So, I’m going to fold this part in. And you’ll see I’m using the neckline as a guide. So, right where the collar would hit your neck is where you want to fold this into. And then I’m just folding the sleeve back on itself and quickly smoothing. I’m going to repeat on the other side, making sure all of my lines are nice and neat as I go. And of course, I’m doing this super slow so that you can see and I can explain, but when I’m actually doing it, it is much faster. And rather than doing the trifold that you would do with a normal shirt, I find this one folds up a lot nicer when you do smaller folds. So on this shirt, I might actually get three folds out of the deal. And you’ll want to stop right at the base of the collar so that when you flip it over, it sits nicely. And you can see this will stack up beautifully. Duvets and comforters are one of those items that I actually hate storing. So, I would even suggest rethinking your bedroom decor strategy so that you can avoid having to store them because they are bulky and they don’t fold up nicely. But if you do have to store them, I have a couple of solutions for you. As you can clearly see, I mean, I gave it my best shot, but it is not a perfect square and it is going to look lopsided and yucky in a linen closet. So, the two options I have for you are this. The first one, um, if your duvet does not have feathers, in which case we’re going to have to use option two. But in option one, you can use a Ziploc space bag or a space saving bag. These are great. You open them up, they’re large format. You can stuff whatever you need to stuff in there up to the fill line. And then you can seal it up and either sit on it with your body weight, which will press out all of the extra air through a little valve. Then you’ll just seal that valve by clipping it or snapping it closed, or you can use a vacuum cleaner to actually extract all of the air from the bag. The bag flattens down to the size of roughly a pancake. And then you can shove it wherever you need to shove it, whether it’s a linen closet or somewhere in the basement. And the great thing about that is it keeps it airtight and it’s waterproof and it keeps all the things out that you don’t want getting out and everything in that you need in. Now, the reason you don’t want to use this option with a downfilled comforter or duvet is because this process can can ruin the feathers and that’s what you’re paying for and that’s what’s keeping you warm. In that case, you would actually just want to use the bag that your comforter came in. Now, ours, because we don’t store ours, actually is used for holiday decor storage, but I brought it up out of the goodness of my heart to show you. Now, the reason I like these, uh, not only are they plastic on one side, so you can see what’s in there, and they’re nice and durable, but they have this breathable material on the backside, which is really important, uh, especially for a natural fiber like down. So, something like this would truly be a perfect option. So, when you, you know, I I love to tell you guys to throw everything out if you don’t need it, but I actually think something like this would be worth keeping if you’re planning on storing your duvet or comforter. And now, perhaps the cutest part of the video, folding kids clothes. And I do have to say I have a pretty cute collection of them. And I’m going to show you not only how I kind of organize the drawers, cuz I know I get a lot of questions about that, too, but how some challenging items get folded. Now, I’m also going to tell you I have a burgeoning bin of laundry that I have to do, which is why her drawers are a little less full right now, but we still have what we need. First thing I want to show you is uh this drawer divider. I think these are great for kids rooms because they provide you with the flexibility as your kids grow to change up the configuration of what the drawers look like. Uh you know, folding shirts, t-shirts, little sweaters, all you’re using the same techniques that you would use for adult clothing. So, I don’t really want to cover that, but I do want to get into onesies because this is something I get asked about quite a bit. So, here’s probably one of I mean, look, guys, leopard baby, leopard mother, of course. Um, one of my all-time favorite onesies. But I want to show you how uh I fold this. And I came up with this technique on my own. And this works as your child grows. When Riley was really small, um the same technique worked. And now that she’s bigger, I just have to do an extra fold. So here’s what I do. Again, I’m going on that principle of the square. So I flip up the diaper portion into the middle. The next thing I do is I fold the sleeves right in on each other just like this. And then I have the coveted square. Next, I do a trifold like this. And I flatten it out. Then I fold it over. I fold it into a rectangle like that. and I stuff it into the drawer. That’s how it’s done. There’s your onesie. It’s hard to feel a lot of joy after you’ve folded something, but I will say this, when you know how to fold something correctly, it does feel fractionally better, and that is what we’re going for. And further, your drawers and your cupboards will look that much neater. And that brings me to this week’s comment question, which is, what is the most challenging thing to fold in your house? Let me know in the comments down below and maybe I will put another video together where I provide even more laundry and folding assistance to you. If you want more solutions to your cleaning, organizing, laundry, and decluttering struggles, you might want to sign up for our newsletter. It’s called The Dirty Dish, and I’ve got a link for you down below. And if you like what we do here at Clean MySpace, you might want to consider becoming a member and supporting me and my very small team. If you want to learn even more about how to make your cupboards, closets, and drawers look neat, you should check out this video all about folding and hanging secrets I think everyone needs to know. If you haven’t done so already, make sure that you subscribe to the Clean MySpace channel. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see you next time.