Vacuum sealed garment bags are my new best friend. They made this year’s spring cleaning a breeze!
We had an unusual winter last year here in Houston. This year it was actually cold. Not “cold” in the same sense that my family in New York experiences every year, but it was cold for us. You may be wondering what that has to do with vacuum-sealed laundry bags. Keep reading. You will understand soon!
We had a flurry of snow. Actually 2 this year. People get scared here when they see this legendary powdery substance fall from the sky. They think they need to drive faster and brake at the last moment. Both assumptions wrong.
When we go out in the “frigid” 30 degree weather we have to bundle up like an Eskimo. We layer the clothes like a pan of lasagna. We took out all of our winter clothes from last year that we only wore for a month so we could wear them for an extended 2 month winter. I was sure I wished I had used vacuum sealed bags for clothes when I pulled these items out.
We don’t know how to handle the cold. We know this. We accept it. We love it.
This type of cold weather clothing creates storage problems for the rest of the year. Winter clothing is bulky. You can fold all of your clothes as neatly as possible and it will still take up a lot of space due to trapped air in the padding. Are you beginning to understand how vacuum-sealed laundry bags are going to fit into this scenario?
I used to use the big plastic bins to store the family’s winter stuff. She kept clothes grouped in a central location, but they were still bulky and took up a lot of space.
After seeing space bags on TV, I decided to give them a try. These vacuum-sealed laundry bags were cheap and had a lot of positive reviews.
I mainly needed the vacuum sealed bags for clothes, but they have several really good uses, like extra bedding and pillow storage.
Of course, I had to ask myself: do space bags really work?
I was skeptical. How many times have you seen the incredible special effects of infomercials? My favorite was the special mop that could clean half a cheeseburger, condiments and all. Would these vacuum sealed laundry bags really cut the mustard?
In fact, I was very surprised at how well Space Bags did what they advertised. You open the bag. Put your folded clothes inside. Seal it up and then suck out the air with any vacuum with a suction hose. Ready! You have vacuum-sealed bags for clothes that can be organized, stacked and whose contents can be seen through the transparent plastic.
The vacuum sucks in all the air and crushes the contents into a manageable package. Space pockets have been reduced by 75%. I found that these vacuum sealed bags for clothes also worked for bedding and pillows. So now I have extra space for actual storage instead of having all my space gobbled up by clothes and bedding.
When it’s time for winter, I’ll just change my winter clothes for summer clothes. Vacuum sealed garment bags are ingenious. The simplest ideas always seem to be the best inventions. This is one of them.
There are a couple of other homemade versions of vacuum-sealed bags for clothes. One method I saw was to use a heavy duty garbage bag. You use it the same way you would use a space bag, but you wrap the opening of the garbage bag around the vacuum hose and suck out the air. Once the air is out, you need to seal it off with several rubber bands to keep the opening closed.
I did a side by side comparison and this is what I found. Both bags shrunk to almost exactly the same size. The garbage bag was a pain to seal with the rubber bands. I had a couple of pops on me because the first time I tried it had air leaks.
The bags seemed to hold up well. I thought I might have found a cheap alternative to Space Bags. I was wrong. In the morning, the garbage bag had somehow sucked in air and everything seemed to return to its normal size. I needed vacuum sealed bags for clothes that were actually designed to keep the seal.
If you are very careful about handling garbage bags, you may be able to get away with this option. However, when I have vacuum-sealed bags for clothes, I just want to be able to stack them in the attic without fear of getting a splinter or getting caught in the plastic on the stairs going up.
I’ve read that you can also do the garbage bag method with oversized zip lock storage bags. The space bags were about the same price as the ziplock, so I didn’t see the point of trying to make the ziplock do something it wasn’t designed to do. Gap bags seal properly with no need to prick your fingers with broken rubber bands and have an easy to use vacuum port.
Another great use for vacuum-sealed clothing bags came when it was time to move. We were able to pack all of our clothes and our children’s clothes into a fraction of the boxes it was the last time we moved. Since we move about once a year, space bags have become a necessity on a par with boxes, duct tape, and bubble wrap.
Watch out!! Boxes that have been packed with vacuum-sealed garment bags will be deceptively heavy. You can pack so much more into each box with ease that you may need to double tape on those boxes.
I’d rather double-tap a box than record just one four or five boxes.
Without a doubt, Space Bags are the best option available in vacuum-sealed bags to store clothes. If you don’t believe me, try one of the other options I mentioned, or let me know a trick you discovered on your own. I love learning new things from my readers.