Taming the Chaos

I couldn't put it off any longer.  Last weekend, I walked through the dread, and attacked the chaos that was living in our closet.

We're so lucky to have a huge master closet.  Honestly, it's one of the main reasons we bought the house.  The downside is that it can be turn into a really big mess, really quickly.  I had way too much stuff in here, and it was making me tired just to go in there in the morning.  It was too hard to find something to wear in all this mess.

The main problem is that my weight tends to yo-yo pretty significantly, and over the last three years, I lost about 75 pounds and now I've put almost all of it back on.  This means that I had about 4 different sizes of everything.  Just like the weight, the closet had gotten way out of hand!

That's my side of the closet.  Yikes!  It took me most of the weekend to finish, but I persevered.  First, I went through all of the hanging clothes.  The clothes went to one of three places:

1. Back on the rack with a wooden hanger.
2. Into one of three big plastic tubs (XL - All Seasons, XL - Winter, and M/L - All Seasons).  I plan on hopping back on the weight loss wagon soon, and I don't want to buy all new stuff again.  I'll put these in the attic so that I can grab them easily when I need to go down a size.
3. The Goodwill pile for those things that I don't ever want to wear again (this ended up being three huge trash bags full).

Next, I went through my shoes.  I donated most of my sandals, and many of my other work shoes that were looking a little run down.  One of those three Goodwill trash bags was all shoes. (Ugh - the gluttony!)  I need to start practicing some restraint in all the areas of my life!

Last, I took everything off the shelves up top and stacked all like items together (cardigans, pullovers, sweats, sleep T's, etc.).

Drum roll, please!  Here's the big reveal...

What is it about cleaning out and organizing that just makes you feel lighter and like you can take a deep breath?

I did a post on my jewelry and handbag organization here.  My purses are in the "dust bags" hanging on the lower bar.  The bags on the top shelf are just tote and overnight bags.  There are also a few bags up there that still need dust bags. 

The red boxes hold my running shoes (I'll wear them again soon), and my swimsuits (I may NEVER wear these again). The shoes in the shoe shelf on this side are summer, casual, or ones that I don't wear very often.

This shelf is our "linen closet."  I threw out a bunch of old towels and then organized the rest by size.  They fit in the shelf better and look neater rolled.  I use Martha's sheet storage trick and store the extra sheet sets in one of the pillowcases.  It keeps everything it all together, it's neater, and it's easy to grab the whole set when it's time to change the sheets.  The plastic shoe boxes hold the heating pads, and various braces and bandages.

Work shoes here.  I wedged a small bookshelf in this basically unusable corner.  On the top shelf are my three pairs of jeans and two pairs of leggings.  The middle shelf holds tank tops (in the plastic box) and work out shorts in the yellow box.  The bottom shelf holds my work out bag and in the striped box are a extra wallets, clutches and small evening bags.

And that's it - except....

...for the other side of the closet.

 

I cannot be held responsible for The Man's side.  I'm doing good just to keep his junk from encroaching on my space.  This may be hard to believe, but it is entirely possible that he is worse than I am with clothes.  Notice the empty bins on the floor.  They are a subtle hint that he may want to consider storing a few things.  ;-)

I found three "fall" colored plastic tubs at Wally World on clearance for only $2.50 each.  I also bought three plastic shoebox-sized ones for $0.97 each.  So, that plus the gigantic Rt. 44 Diet Cherry Limeade from Sonic for only $1 (half price happy hour) made for a very cheap weekend. 

I also worked on my kitchen last week and plan to finish it this weekend.  I'll probably do one more organizing post showing this big clean-out next week.