Closet Clean-out

So, several weeks ago, I shared that my closet was in bad shape...... Partly because I have put on so much extra weight and partly because I just have a bunch of old clothes that are woefully out of fashion.

Welp, the time had finally come to do something drastic! This is super embarrassing because I never should have let my closet get into this kind of condition, but I had. This is life and lately, my life had not revolved around my closet! So, red face and all.....

I'm going in! 

What a mess!!

After 2 days, I had finally finished trying on everything in my closet and the dresser in my bedroom. Yes - I tried on Every.Single.Thing! Whew!!

This picture doesn't do it justice. Between the hubby and I, we donated 12 plastic bags of clothes to a dear friend. Her church was having a garage sale to raise funds for their Widow's Fund. It was a win-win for all of us! Gotta love that!

                                            

Luckily, I had a pretty organized system for my clothes already. I had just allowed things to get overcrowded and messy. Now that I had seriously purged everything, it was time to "put things right" again. Space is definitely not an issue with this closet. We are extremely blessed by the size of this closet. In fact, it's part of why we selected this floor plan. The closet surrounds our bathtub, so it basically has 3 long sides. Dave and I each have a long side and then we split the back wall. For this post, I'm just going to show you my 1 1/2 walls. I have big plans for the rest of the closet and I'll do a complete "Room Tour" when we get those projects completed.

CLOSET AFTER!

                                            

First up --> Shirts. I start by separating them into types: sleeveless, short-sleeve, and long-sleeve. Polos and athletic-types are on the bottom rod. Within each type, the shirts are hung in color-order......Rainbow order to be more precise! (Of course!! I want a Happy Closet!)

                                         

Also on the bottom rod, are jeans and pants. I only kept a couple pairs of jeans and actually zero dress pants. Hubby was SUPER sweet and bought me 3 new pairs so I'd have something to wear! I had to get a slightly bigger size, but that's only temporary. I can live with this new size for a little while.

I keep vests, shrugs, jackets, and blazers on the back half of my long wall. Again, I'll share all that other stuff like shoes and bags when I show the entire closet. This post is really about how I organized my clothes.

It's a little hard to see, but I like my hangers to match. All of my shirts, vests, and shrugs have the same type of white plastic hanger. The jackets and blazers have more substantial clear plastic ones. I've thought about investing in the nice, velvety-kind of hangers, but I really don't see spending that kind of money for hangers. Pants and skirts are both grouped by type and color on pant and skirt hangers.
                                         

The back wall of the closet has a single rod, so I hang skirts to the left and dresses and track suits to the right. For now, winter sweaters are in the suitcase on the floor. Cardigans are on the shelf above the skirts and short-sleeve sweaters are in that Sterilite drawer unit. I'm working on a new system for those items, so hopefully they won't be like this for much longer. It's just not working for me.
 

Since I was on such a roll with my closet, I decided to tackle my dresser. I've been super curious about the new way to fold t-shirts. I've seen this all over Web-land, so I decided to give it a whirl. I'm thrilled with how well it worked!! Hubby was so impressed, that he's going to do the same with his collection of t's.  

                                            

So, I can now say that the State of the Closet is muuuch better!! I feel happy every time I walk in. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. This closet is dark and very difficult to photograph. I am definitely still a beginner with this "fancy-pants" camera, so don't know what I'm doing with lighting and stuff. Bear with me and hopefully when I post the full closet, the quality of the pictures will actually match the quality of the closet!!

Until then, take a look at your own closet. What can you do to make it function better for you??