Last week on a snow day we happened to be in the midst of a week long TV fast which was a near catastrophe! While I was having visions of cuddling on the couch with hot cocoa and watching movies all day, Ben was dreaming of organizing (he REALLY must not like cuddling). He suggested that we begin a new snow day tradition of cleaning out 1 closet in our house. I wasn’t totally on board, but caved under pressure and boredom.
In order to keep our marriage intact, we ended up working separately on our own closets (our house was built in 1954, hence why we have separate closets in different rooms) – you can read about Ben’s closet on his blog. Let’s begin with the obligatory before pics:
No, this isn’t the after pic – I’m just a neat freak at heart. The real problem was the top of the closet – every time I needed something from there, an avalanche of sheets, hats, scarves and gloves would fall on top of me.
I stuck to my hubby’s method of taking every single item out of the closet and setting it on the bed – holy clutter, Batman! Some items of interest I discovered were 2 boxes of books Ben had somehow snuck up there after running out of space in his own closet, 18 pairs of shoes (and I’m not even a shoe girl) and a scrapbook my mom started for me so I could scrapbook our wedding someday (7 yrs. have passed, it’s not gonna happen).
I proceeded to sort everything into 3 groups – keep, donate, toss. I asked the age-old, tough question again and again, “Have I used/worn/felt great in this in the past year?” 10 less pairs of shoes, 4 less old sheet sets, 50% less of my entire wardrobe and 4 trash bags of donation items later…
I can actually see and reach everything now and I have tons of extra hanging space to the right (even though you can’t see it in the pic). I will have less analysis paralysis when it comes to picking out what to wear which equals less stress. I found a home for that cute brown basket from Target I received as a Christmas gift, it now holds all of those life threatening hats, scarves and gloves.
I also decided to hang everything on the same huggable hangers which is a big staging tip to make your closet more appealing to the eye. I plan on buying wooden hangers for Ben’s closet to do the same thing. If you must use plastic hangers, I suggest at least making them all the same color. I am on a mission to find somewhere to donate old plastic hangers since Goodwill won’t take them.
There you have it – I’ve officially aired my dirty clean laundry on the blog for all to see! Anyone have any other closet decluttering tips that have worked for you? What’s your favorite soundtrack to organize to (we went old school with the Fashion Nugget by Cake album)? Where oh where can my plastic hangers go (besides the Great Pacific Garbage Patch)?
Staging by M 