I'm not a hoarder. We live in a 2100 square foot house. We have 3 spare bedroom closets. Every closet is full. There are two of us that live here. Let me start again.
I may have hoarder tendencies (not to make fun of anyone's real struggle with hoarding). But I do have a strange compulsion to hold onto things just in case. Just in case I can't find the perfect outfit to wear out and might decide that something I wore my freshman year of college will do the trick. Ha!
In 2013, I'm trying to live with less. There's a rumor that every time a friend of mine goes shopping and buys a pair of shoes or a new dress, she gets rid of a pair of shoes and a dress in her closet. Crazy town. I know that I'm not ready to jump on the train to crazy town just yet, but there are a few goals I'm committed to committing to. Say that 5 times fast.
Each winter I will try on all of the clothes (and shoes) that I own. I will ask myself: 1. Does it fit? 2. Is it in good condition? 2. Do I feel good in it?
If I answer "no" to just one of those questions, out it goes. Seem too simple? Here are the results of yesterday's winter purge:
No, I'm not sitting here naked. I still have a full closet and and a full dresser, but I feel so much lighter! The things that made it through to the next round are things that have a chance in hell of getting worn.....this year.
When I showed Jake the pile of clothes and shoes, waiting like a puppy for him to pat my head and tell me how proud he is of me, he just shrugged and said, "but now you'll just go out and buy new things." Skeptic, ey?
To calm down his heart palpitations caused by
He does have more underwear than that. #laundryday. Moving on.
Before I put "the keepers" back into the drawers and closet, I wanted to evaluate what was and was not working with the way things were currently organized.
Last April, I redid our closet on a budget, adding a ton of cheap storage using ClosetMaid items from Target. See post here. Jen, from iheartorganizing even featured it on her Conquer Closet Clutter Challenge. See feature here.
For the most part, things were staying pretty neat in my closet with a few exceptions. My shirts were no longer organized by color, some wire dry cleaner hangers made it to Jake's shirt section, and I was running out of space for my shoes which were piling up on the floor. My sweaters were stacked on a high shelf and starting to topple over and look sloppy because I couldn't reach them.
Goals for reorganized closet: 1. Move the things that I wear daily down to my level. 2. Add more high heel shoe storage. 3. Create a space to store my jewelry.
Because I was now working with a lot less "stuff" I didn't need all of the ClosetMaid organizers. That's one nice thing about not working with built-ins; you can customize as your needs change. I was able to remove one shoe organizer and a set of drawers. I'll be using the drawers in my entry way closet.
I took the ClosetMaid cubby that I was using for shoes and turned it into storage for my pants, sweatshirts, and sweaters which are now all easily in my reach. I used the top of the shelf to stack my purses.
I took a shelf that I was using in the laundry closet and turned it on its side to use for my high heels.
I wanted a place to hang my long necklaces. They were sitting in a tray and constantly getting tangled instead of worn. I had an extra bulletin board so I made room for it in my closet and used clear push pins to hang my necklaces up. I placed an old shelf on top of the wire system and created a space for my new jewelry box and hung my bracelets on my old jewelry tree.
In the canvas storage bins, I keep small purses, scarves, and belts.
Things are nice and tidy again, and I'm pretty confident they'll stay that way for a while. I'd like to design a drool worthy closet system at some point. Working with these inexpensive fixes for now is helping me plan for what we'll actually need and use.
Next up, emptying out the entry way closet and kitchen cupboards. Starting our reno on Monday! We're off tomorrow for a little ski getaway so not sure if I'll be back again before next week. If not, happy week and weekend!
