Closet Organization
One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the year is to completely organize my closet. I love taking everything out and going through everything making sure only the stuff that I truly love and use goes back in. There is something almost therapeutic about organizing for me. It makes me feel like I am in control and like I am prepared for anything that is thrown my way.
I had my job cut out for me this year because since leaving my job in the finance world, there was a lot of clothes that has just been taking up space in my closet. Stay at home mom's don't need 10 business suits! So this led me to give my closet a "deep cleanse."
I started by completely emptying out the closet and creating piles: shirts, pants, skirts, dresses, and miscellaneous where I mostly had purses and shoes. I made sure to remove EVERYTHING from the closet. I then took the opportunity to clean the closet now that it was empty.
Now it is time to look through the items and decide what you want to do. I typically have 4 piles: Keep, Donate, Sell, and Trash. I then look through every piece of clothing and decide if it is something that I want to keep. I know most of us have heard several ideas on how to do this, but I usually just follow the the theory that if I have not worn it in over a year then I am not going to wear it again. I start by the piles we created above so that when I put them back in the closet, I have them all in one area.
For example, I look through all of the shirts in the shirt pile. Once I have my keep pile for shirts, I put them on pretty hangers, I love these from Amazon. I then organize the shirts by style, i.e. sleeveless, short sleeves, dress shirts, etc. And lastly, I organize the shirt styles by color. Now I am ready to bring these back into the closet!
If you have been following me, you know how much I hate wire shelving. My closet still has it, but I don't mind it here as much because it allows me to hang my clothes nicely. In the future, we would like to install a closet system in here, but for now, this is how I am making it work.
I follow the above steps for all the other clothes piles and start arranging them back in the closet in the way that works best for me. I typically put shirts and dresses on the top rack and bottoms and my sweaters on the lower rack.
Lastly, I look through my shoes and purses and decide which ones are going back into the closet. I have a hard time saying goodbye to my shoes and purses so I always need my husbands support while I do this and he is nice enough to remind me that he has never seen me wear that specific pair of shoes or purse that I am having trouble parting with. :-/ I only keep the shoes in here that I don't wear everyday. We keep a show cabinet in garage with our everyday shoes so we keep dirt out of the house.
Some of the items will be hard to part with so if you are having trouble, I typically stash them out of sight for a couple of weeks and if I don't miss them or try to find them, then off to donation they go!
Now the fun part begins, making the closet area pretty! As a new stay at home, being in my closet is about the only alone time I get. So I wanted to make sure to make this a place that I truly love and enjoy being in. I created a little vanity area by adding an Ikea dresser and a Home Goods mirror. Add some perfumes as decor and lovely little trays to stash my make up supplies and my little corner is complete!
One one side of the closet, I put in an Ikea 6 drawer tall dresser to store my pjs, socks, underwear, shorts, etc. Above I set up my getting ready area with some of my favorite things that I use everyday.
On the opposite side of the closet, I installed shelving to help me store some of my jewlery and makeup.
Perfume bottles make the perfect closet decor accessories! I keep the ones I typically wear on my dresser and others hanging on the wall.
I found that picture ledges help keep perfume bottles nicely and out of the way.
I use an antique brass key holder that used to be my great grandmothers to keep my long necklaces together.
What are some of the ways you keep your closet organized? Leave me a comment below!
