Tonight, I'm Cleaning Out My Closet...

Well, actually, I cleaned it out yesterday.  My closet has been in shambles for as long as I can remember.  I have been wearing the same 20% or so of my wardrobe for more than two years.  Two pregnancies that were pretty much back to back are to blame for that.  I still had maternity clothing hanging in my closet and I haven't worn them in over 7 months, but I still haven't gotten down to the size of the majority of my clothing.  Anyway, everything was collecting dust and lacking any kind of order.  It was driving me crazy.  Our "master" closet is the reach-in kind with sliding doors.  I do not like the size OR the doors.  Oh well, not much you can do.  Here are some befores:

The first thing I did was take every single thing out of the closet.  Then I vacuumed the floor and dusted off the shoe shelves and the top shelf.

I went through every single piece before putting things away.  I gathered quite a few things that I plan to sell on a local yard sale Facebook group or at yard sales next summer.  Those went in bins and ended up in the storage area of our basement for now.  I have A LOT of smaller pants sizes that don't fit at the moment, but will fit as soon as I get my working out/dieting act together.  I have quite a range when it comes to pants sizes.  So I put them all into piles by size.  My current size and the next size down are the only pants that made it back into my closet.  Everything else went into the hamper that we have in our bedroom.  We never use it for dirty clothing anyway.  So pants went into the hamper for storage until I can fit into them again and out came a large pile of sweaters.  I purchased some sweater bins from The Container Store a few months ago, and now I finally put them to use!  I folded them all and divided them between the two bins.  Those ended up on the top shelf of the closet, along with two piles of sweatshirts.  The clothing went back in like this.. from left to right:  Camisoles, cardigans, tank tops, short sleeved work shirts, short sleeved casual shirts,  3/4 length shirts, button down shirts, sweaters, sweatshirt jackets, pants and dresses.  I did my best to organize the shirts by color from lightest to darkest within their specific categories.  The pants are just in order by size from left to right.  I bought the pants hangers from Ikea and I LOVE them!  Before, I had the pants folded over regular shirt hangers.  This solution is much better looking and better for the pants as well.    

My shoe situation was so messy before.  I was just throwing them all on the floor of the closet instead of using the shoe shelves.  I ended up being able to remove one shelf because I just don't have that many shoes these days.  I blame that on having 4 children over the span of 7 years.  I wore the same flats nearly every single workday for 3 of my pregnancies.  My favorite pair of heels finally had to go in the garbage a few months ago.  I wear flip flops whenever I have the chance.  I am just not big on shoes anymore.  Oh well.  My closet and my wallet are better off without so many shoes.  

My purse collection has also dwindled over the years.  I have been using the same summer purse for the past two summers and now I am back to my same winter purse for the second year in a row.  I decided to keep my smaller "going out" purses, a wristlet and a wallet in a small basket on the shoe shelf.  My summer purse and one other purse are in their dust bags and fit perfectly inside my Vera Bradley weekender bag.  That fits nicely on the top shelf.  I have two crossbody purses that I use occasionally if I feel like switching over to them on a day of errands or what have you.  I hung them on hooks behind my dresses on the right wall of the closet.  I hung my belts and my lone scarf on the left wall.  

And that's about all there is to our "master" closet.  If you're wondering where all of my husband's stuff is, it is downstairs.  We have a small walk-in closet in the basement and that is his closet.  He doesn't mind having to go down there everyday to pick out his clothing.  There really isn't any other choice.  I do long for a nice big walk-in closet in the master bedroom where we would be able to fit all of our stuff together, but we are making do with what we have for now.  And now that I have gone through all of my clothing, maybe I will have a bit more motivation to lose weight and be able to fit in more than 20% of it!  

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