Taming the Closet

A woman’s closet is probably the most daunting area in the house. I often find myself spending hours  each week organizing the items in my closet and it makes me angry.  I began to realize that the problem wasn’t that I was organizing incorrectly, it was the AMOUNT of things in my closet. I needed to purge. The arrival of spring is the perfect time to jump start a deep cleanse.

Lovely “before” picture of my closet

( See that red machine looking thing? That’s an ab rocket. Do I use it? No.)

Naturally, bloggers like reading other blogs. I turned to the blog i heart organizing  to be more efficient in the process.  Anyone who enjoys the organizing process should check it out. Here are some of the best tips I picked up from the blog:

1. The item should fit you well and compliment your style. So, if something is too big or small, why keep it? Focus on the clothes that make you look awesome.

2. Don’t keep items that aren’t in good condition. Many times it can be more expensive to repair items than going out and purchasing a new one.

3. Purge what you don’t need.  Frequency of use can be used as a benchmark when you’re deciding what you’ll keep. Some things may only be worn once in a while (e.g. for special events) while others are not worn because you no longer like them or because you haven’t seen them. If the latter statement refers to you, give them until the end of this season to see if you reach for them.

4. You should have an occasion to wear it. So that juicy pant suit you have from high school should probably go. No but really, I found a pink juicy pant suit in my closet.

5. Put everything on hangers. This one I can’t stress enough. Hanging absolutely everything, even t-shirts, saved me so much space.

Based on the tips from above, my closet turned into this:

After

My shoes used to wind up cluttered in the basket by my door, but now I have enough room to cleanly line them up in my closet!

I also created two bags with labels “sell” and “donate”. For those of you  in the Burlington area, a brand new Good Will just opened up on North Church St. It’s just a two minute drive from Elon. In total, I cleared my closet of 40 Items! Ah! And I feel so   fresh, relaxed and ready for Spring!