Closet Clean Out

 { all the now-free hangers }

 Something I dread doing is laundry.  It's not the simple task of washing the clothes and hanging them to dry (I don't mind this so much, it's certainly rewarding to see all your favourite clothes clean and yes, I must hang almost everything due to my height - one small shrinkage for some could be a very large shrinkage for me), it's the daunting task of finding a place to put the clothes once they are clean.  It's no secret I love to shop and have accumulated tons over the years, it's the storing of all these clothes.  Currently, I use half of the walk-in closet, 9 (out of 16) drawers in our bedroom furniture, the office closet (sweaters, hoodies & jackets) and 3/4 of the spare bedroom closet (dresses).  Wow, writing it out makes it seem like even more (ha). 

On Saturday, I was folding massive piles of laundry, dreading the part where I'd have to find a place for it all, when I started to clean out one of my dressers.  Just out of nowhere, I started to purge.  I went through all those drawers and made a huge pile of stuff. I didn't stop there.  I marched into our walk-in closet and went to town.  I was ruthless - and it was shocking.  I made two piles:  donate & consign.  I ended up with two massive garbage bags full of clothing (donate) and a spare bed piled with clothes (consign). - over 200 items.  I literally spent all day and night purging and cleaning - exhausting but well worth the end result. 

I invited a girlfriend over to paw through everything and she took 32 items and it barely made a dent.  The best part?  I still have closets full of clothing (that I love) and have made space.  Yes, it's still full, but I can actually push hangers to the side and slide the clean clothes in without using my bicep muscles. Score.

{ spare bed full of clothes - this picture was taken after my friend took home her share }

{ more clothes & one of the two garbage bags }

 { I reorganized my drawers and pulled out the bottom one to 

find missing undies and tops I thought I'd lost forever - woohoo! }

 { AFTER:  walk-in closet}

 { AFTER: dress closet }

As far as organization goes, I keep like-items together and colour coordinate in my closets (I find this helps for getting dressed). In the picture of my walk-in, I have two clothing bars.  On the top bar I keep sleeveless tops that are colour coordinated which run into button-downs/oxfords.  On the bottom bar I put tops with sleeves and cardigans, also colour coordinated.  Above the top bar is a shelf where I keep all my 'in-rotation' purses and clutches.  I didn't get a chance to tidy this up so I didn't photograph it.

The dress closet is colour coordinated and for each colour and I go from sleeveless to sleeved and if there is anything with a pattern, it goes at the end of the colour block.

What you didn't see:

* Sweater & jacket closet (I didn't go through this closet as I'd cleaned it out not too long ago)

* Drawer organization (I'll save this for another post)

* Shoe organization