Storing gloves and mittens in the winter can be a challenge — especially for large families.  And especially once the gloves have been worn and they’re all soggy.

Basic Glove Storage

Every household has its own strategy for storing gloves in general.  These might include options such as:

• Oh Snap! bin (from Thirty-One)
• shoe containers — Use the pockets or compartments of an over-the-door or cubby-style shoe sorter for pairs of gloves.
• drawer, bucket, basket, or bin in the closet
• in pockets — You can store a pair of everyday gloves in the pocket of the coat they’ll be worn with.

When They’re Wet – Glove Drying Rack

But what do you do when they get wet?  We were storing our gloves in a Sterilite drawer in the bottom of the coat closet, but this solution fell short once the kids had been outside in the snow.  They didn’t want to stuff soggy gloves back into the drawer (for good reason), but that meant they were strewn all over the house.

My solution?  A dish-drying rack.

Yes, really.

After searching through a variety of configurations, I bought this bamboo dish drying rack.  It has two rows of nine “posts” each, so it can hold nine pairs of gloves or mittens.

HBlife Bamboo Dish Drying Rack

We mounted it on hooks near the back door, so the kids can stick their gloves on it when they come in, and it lets them air dry.  Or the whole rack can be temporarily relocated to near the woodstove if we need to dry them faster.