Sometimes my idea of a good time is… a little different from other people’s ideas. For instance, this past Memorial Day, most people were probably hanging out with friends and grilling out. I decided that instead of doing all that fun stuff I would clean out our bedroom closet. (The weather turned out to be garbage that day anyway, so why not clean and organize??)
I was really inspired by this closet clean-out video by Laura from How to GYST where she takes EVERYTHING out of her closet, cleans the area, Konmari’s all her stuff, and puts back only the things she loves. (Check out her blog post here; she discusses the benefits of emptying a space when decluttering. It’s very helpful and motivational.) It made me realize that I had never once taken everything out of the closet and cleaned it in the entire time we have lived in our house. Sure, I’ve dusted and vacuumed and decluttered and organized in there a few times, but I’ve never done a very thorough job of it.
I knew this project would take at least a couple hours, so I scheduled it on a day my husband would be home when we had no plans (which happened to be Memorial Day). Scheduling the clean-out in advance was crucial. I couldn’t just nope out of the task after already setting aside the time when my husband was available to watch the kids. (I wouldn’t have, because I was really looking forward to doing this, because I’m a weird nerd who enjoys organizing and decluttering.)
I set aside about four hours that day for the entire project, not thinking it would take very long – I should have scheduled in some extra buffer time in case the project ran over (and it did). The “master bedroom” closet (it’s not really even a master bedroom, it’s just one of the two larger bedrooms) is very small. It’s only about two feet deep – you can’t even walk into it. The area is obscured by louver doors and has one clothes rod and one shelf.
Here is the closet before the clean-out:
As you can see, the tiny space is jam-packed.
The shelf held the box for my lamp, neck pillows for travelling, random things of my husband’s, travel makeup bags, my Georgette Heyer novels, and a bunch of shoe boxes – some holding shoes, some empty.
The clothes rod was bowing in the center from the weight of everything. In the center we had two tie racks holding my husband’s neck ties (he hasn’t had to wear a tie to work in years) and a large ugly multi purpose hanger that held belts and more ties. There’s also a hanger holding scarves and tights.
A look behind the door at my husband’s side. On the floor is a bin (you can’t see it because it’s so full) that holds his “working outside” clothes.
A look behind the other door at my side. On the floor is a bin holding slippers and old pajama pants beyond repair to be cut up for scraps. Behind all that are my boots.
How to begin: First I took EVERYTHING out of the closet.
Clothes and accessories went onto the bed. All of my shoes and other random things went onto the floor next to the bed.
My husband’s shoes and boxes went onto the floor on the other side.
Next I pulled out the shoe rack and gave it a good dusting. I dusted and wiped down the shelf, clothes rod, and baseboards. Then I vacuumed the carpet inside, also vacuuming into the crevices and corners. Here’s the closet now, empty and clean.
Next I sorted through all my things. Decluttering my clothes wasn’t a big deal, because I had already discarded some earlier in the season when I did my Spring wardrobe analysis. I did manage to pull out a couple more things to discard and several things that needed to be moved to different locations.
For example, I found a pair of slippers I’d barely worn and a pair of boots, both I thought I had already donated. I also took out a belt that had never worked for me, but I kept it because I hadn’t found a replacement. I still never wore the old one, so it went into the donate pile.
All of the books went into the room where I keep my books (I had them in my closet because my bookshelf used to be so crammed full that there wasn’t room for my favorites on it). I emptied out the bin. After going through the tights and discarding several of them, I took the ones I wanted to keep, folded and rolled them, and placed them nicely in the bin. Scarves went on top.
The clothes I kept:
My husband went through his things and was able to discard a lot! He is pretty minimal and has no problem getting rid of things, but he tends to not declutter as often as I do, so his things pile up until he gets around to doing a big purge. He discarded quite a few old work shirts that didn’t fit him well (he started buying a brand and style that fit him much better years ago) and enough ties that we could get rid of one of the tie holders.
The clothes he kept:
Everything to be donated:
We also got rid of the giant ugly hanger holding our belts that would annoy me every time I looked at it. I found another type of belt hanger in the back of the closet and put our belts on it, until such time as I find a better solution.
We managed to fill up our small trash can and had a small pile of cardboard from broken down boxes to recycle.
After everything was put back in:
Ahhh! It’s a lot nicer looking than it was before. Yes, it still looks a little messy to me – I think because of the loose things on the shelf. I may get some sort of container to hold the loose things if I can find one that matches the existing bins. This is still a huge improvement.
The clothes rod is bowing a little less now. I organized my husband’s shirts by work and casual, and by season, so he can more easily grab one that he needs in the morning when he’s getting ready. I left my clothes organized mostly the same way, just tweaked it a little: cardigans (by color), then tanks, then tees (both from casual to more formal), then tunics, button downs, then dresses and skirts. I added some of my summer dresses that were being stored in another room so I can actually remember to wear them.
The two bins that were taking up space on the floor can now fit on the shelf. On the right are the shoe boxes that actually hold shoes. The loose stuff is set more nicely now. I also got a steamer!
We didn’t discard any shoes, but everything fits on the shoe rack. My boots fit nicely on the bottom. I don’t have a place for my slippers yet, so for now they’re on the floor until I figure out something else.
It’s so nice to be able to easily vacuum the floor in the closet now. My kids love to play in it (don’t know if that’s a good thing). Every time I look into the closet I feel refreshed, because it is organized and clean instead of a pit of anxiety.
What I learned from doing this project:
I used to feel resentful that I didn’t have a big walk-in closet. You can go anywhere on the internet and see photos of large beautifully apportioned walk-in closets filled neatly with lovely clothes that a woman doesn’t even have to share with her husband. Yet I here I was with this dinky space and ugly louver doors that I had to share with my husband. There just wasn’t enough room for the things we wanted to put in it, and it would never look like one of those beautiful (staged) photographs.
We didn’t respect the space we had, and it showed in its messiness.
I recently read Marie Kondo’s book The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up (more on my thoughts and feelings about this wonderful book to come in a future post), and in it she says something to the extent that your home has enough storage space and knows where to store things. She’s right. Our closet was the right size all along; we just had too much junk and weren’t using the space well.
We’ve lived in our house almost ten years now, and never once pulled everything out and thoroughly cleaned it. Doing this eased the anxiety I had surrounding a messy dusty closet. Had we a large (or two!) walk-in closet that hadn’t been well-organized much less thoroughly cleaned out in ten years, what an absolute nightmare that would have been! I’m grateful for my small closet teaching me this lesson.
I can’t wait to move on and create this feeling from every other space in my home, large and small.