The days are long, the weather is wonderful, and I’m posting embarrassing pictures of my home online. Internet, it’s summertime.
This year was bad on the organization front. We fell into the habit of maintaining tiny pockets of the home: the boys’ bathroom, the dining room table, the family room. The rest of the house–especially anything with doors and drawers–suffered from our benign neglect. Even my closet, which I normally keep organized and color-coded, ended up a tangled mess of unused clothing with doors that couldn’t close completely.
I normally try to tackle tasks that benefit the family as a whole, but this summer I am focusing on myself. First up is my closet.
I emptied everything out and started purging in a way that wasn’t aggressive, but wasn’t passive, either. I purged firmly. Hah! My multiple clothing sizes initially slowed my progress. I’m watching what I eat and exercising, which put me into the dangerous “maybe I should keep this because I’m going to lose weight” frame of mind. In the end, my vanity shook me out of it. My donation pile didn’t look impressive enough so I went back for more.
I delivered four bags of clothing to Goodwill; I had two bags of trash. I cleaned out my closet, my dresser, and the builtins where I keep my workout clothes. I did not get to my shoes, socks, or undergarments, but I will. I did some rearranging, too, and put some items in drawers that I once kept on hangers. I have one empty drawer left in my dresser.
Closet
T-Shirt and Sweatshirt Drawer
Shorts, Tanktops, and Camisoles
Pants
Sweaters
This is, by far, the funniest picture of the bunch. A while back I started thinking about uniforms and personal style. I want one! I wished, at the time, that my style wasn’t so eclectic and colorful.
The purple sweater was a gift.
Apparently I see myself as BlancheDevereaux when I’m really Dorothy Zbornak.
“You could wear the purple sweater during Lent,” said The Mister as he charted the sea of oatmeal and charcoal sweaters.
“I could,” I conceded. Spoiler: That’s actually when I wear it.
Not a bad showing for the first time organizing this year, but I’m not completely satisfied. I could do better, have less stuff. I love the idea of living a more mindful life, especially when it comes to consumerism and waste. I started following popular “zero waste” personalities on Instagram, but many of them are committed to the point of zealotry. It was the performance art minimalism has been accused of being. For now, I’m content acknowledging there are many things I can improve upon in terms of mindfulness while still using toilet paper. I’ll read, research, and look for a blogger or instagrammer who inspires me to take action in the fall or winter. Right now, it’s summer and I have embarrassing pictures to take.
Your organizing posts are my favorite. Thank you for sharing this.
I went through most of my clothes in anticipation of my neighborhood wide garage sale. While doing so I found three bags of clothes hiding in the basement I meant to donate years ago. It rained the day of my sale so I sold maybe five pieces. Nothing is coming back in the house. I have bags packed to donated and bags packed for resale at a local plus size shop.
It’s liberating to look in my closet and dresser and see less stuff. It has also helped me realize what I have multiples of and what I’m lacking.
I thought something similar last night. Even though my closet doors were closed, I still felt a lightness in the room. Just knowing the closet wasn’t a disaster made me feel at peace, even though I couldn’t see it.
Your closet looks great. I loved seeing your t shirts folded the “Konmari way”. I enjoyed reading her book but haven’t put into practice thanking my things for their work. I have also started looking into the zero waste movement and have started to look for bloggers to follow who have families and pets. We received some metal straws from the home and garden fair but haven’t taken to toting them around yet. I look forward to seeing what you decide about the zero waste movement.
I will definitely keep you updated. I didn’t keep much of KonMari, but I did keep the way she folds t-shirts. No one else in my family does it this way but it does save space. I know because I originally had the t-shirts folded traditionally and they didn’t all fit. I found one zero-waste person with a son, but their lifestyle was too extreme for me!
Testing
Still working for me in IE
Looking brilliant! I don’t do everything Marie Kondo, but her method of folding and horizontal stacking changed my life.
It’s such a space-saver! My husband doesn’t like it and the boys–please–they just stuff their shirts wherever they’ll fit.
Testing to see if I can leave a comment. I got to say your before and after looks organized. Yes, there is a difference but you’re before was holding its own too, haha :)
Thank you! :)
I love these posts (but, then again, I love all of your posts)! I know I already commented on FB about how amazing it is to clean out our homes. 100% agree that it always feels like a literal weight has been lifted and my home feels lighter. I think it’s the fact that my brain isn’t constantly thinking about how to work around/through so much stuff or about the fact that I should just get rid of stuff. Happy summer organizing season. woot woot!
Thank you! Same to you!!
Yay for summer & (not really) embarrassing pictures of your clutter! I don’t even have kids or a hectic schedule to blame but I’ve also let our house get a bit out of control – with exception to a few tidy common areas. Last week, I happened upon a clearance under-the-bed shoe storage box. It will be the perfect place to store our less-often worn shoes. So far, I have assembled it and placed it under the bed. Empty. Baby steps, LOL!
Hahahaha!! I love it! :D Baby steps are better than no steps at all!
Oh Julieta… I love this. :) People who come to our house often look around and say, “How do you have 5 kids?? Where is all the stuff??” While I look around and say, “GAH!!! ALL THE STUFF!!!” because I can “see” the closets, their bedrooms, and various storage spots in our home. It’s enough to drive me bonkers. I did finally manage to get my work desk cleaned off this last week (despite running all over the place with the kids for their various events), but that happened, in part, because I took all the paperwork and stuffed it in a bag, which I now have to deal with THIS week. :)
Funny your point of them being “committed to the point of zealotry” because that’s almost the exact conversation I had with our oldest this week while I was trying to explain to her what minimalism was and about this book I’m currently reading – “Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism” by Fumio Sasaki. I borrowed it for free on my Kindle through Prime. Some of what he says makes a lot of sense, and he’s pretty open to the fact that minimalism looks a little different for everyone, but the fact that he has purged down to a sleeping mat that he rolls up and stores in his closet so there is NOTHING in his room, is a bit much for me. What I told my daughter was, “Minimalism seems to be their religion.” I have a faith, thanks… my desire for simplicity and minimalism is more for my sanity, and I will ALWAYS have a couch. ;)
That dude sound crazy. That’s exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about. Where does he sit? How does he welcome company over?
I *love* that book. After repeatedly checking it out of the library I ended up buying my own copy. Yes, he takes minimalism much farther than I ever would, but his advice on shifting our mindset about stuff is so helpful. I almost didn’t read the book because the spaces pictured at the beginning are so stark, but I’m glad I read it anyway—he doesn’t try to convince everyone to live in a white box. Just to think about their stuff and what it means to them differently than they have in the past.
For the record, he is Japanese, so sleeping on a mat/futon on the floor that you put away during the day and sitting on the floor is normal. However, it is not normal that he only has one bowl and uses a box as a “table.” But even he admits at the end of his book that minimalism is just a tool, and now that he’s used it to shift his mindset and habits, he’ll probably slowly acquire more stuff as needed.
Interesting perspective, April! I’m going to read it keeping what you said in mind.
Nice work. I like that you prioritized yourself/your wardrobe above the kids. I need to do that more.
I’m 2-4 sizes above my ‘regular’ adult size and decided to pack up and donate most of what doesn’t fit me right now. I have about a dozen pieces of clothing put away for if/when I return to my previous size. I’ve kept a pretty small wardrobe for eight years so I’ve never had a lot of clothing to give away (besides maternity stuff), maybe just a few grocery bags over the years.
P.S. shared an old interview with you a few weeks back on my blog Facebook page and readers loved it!
You’re kidding!! I want to see it! Going to facebook. I have to say, I remember doing that interview with you years ago. That was such a fun time in life. I was blogging a lot back then!
We spent last fall deep-purging our home because, among other reasons, we thought we might rent our home. We didn’t end up renting, but I am really enjoying the extra space and piece of mind we gained. I’m glad you’re continuing this project over the summer, as I have more work to do. I found that it worked to roll all clothing in drawers, unless it really needed to be on a hanger. This system has also helped me to identify what I truly don’t wear because as I put things I wear back in the front of the drawer, the items I don’t wear keep getting pushed to the back.
That’s how I knew I had to donate all but a few of my pants. The ones I donated were in a drawer I didn’t open for an ENTIRE YEAR.
Comment for Jules…from a laptop using Chrome.
Thank you! :)
I’m so glad you’re blogging again, Jules! I love your writing, and especially your organising posts.
My wardrobe (and storage space) is fairly small, but I still managed to pull out a dozen or so items; mostly all bin-worthy. That extra bit of breathing room is lovely. It must feel wonderful to know that you have an entire drawer with nothing in it! I still have to take a good, hard look at my “special occasion” clothes – which I skipped over last time I cleaned out my closet. It seems much easier to make decisions about everyday garments, than the things I’m hanging onto just in case I get invited somewhere fabulous. :-)
Looking forward to following along with the rest of your summer organising.
Thanks, Naomi. It’s great to be back! Yes, the “special occasion” clothes are tough to get rid of. In fact, I got rid of very little of mine this time around! I only have a couple of black dresses in a classic shape, so I figured that was pretty safe. :)
Love the clean closet. I cleaned out my closet about 4 years ago. I have a set amount of hangers and will not purchase more than I can hang. My daughter had the same system. She approached me last fall and advocated for another set of hangers (1 doz). Her rational was that she had quit growing and she wore most of her clothes regularly but she wanted a few more pieces. I agreed and puchased the doz new hangers.
Another idea with closet organization that I adopted is that each person in the family has their hangers that are color coded. I have white, daughter has pink, one son has blue and other son has black. When I did their laundry it was easy to sort by color and deliver to the corresponding room.
Oh, that’s a great idea on having a set count of hangers. I’m going to have to borrow that idea. I love that your daughter had to advocate for more hangers. It’s pretty great that she had to think through her wants and see if they made sense. I think if we all did more of that we would have a lot less clutter!