Thursday, August 4, 2011

Simple Before and After - Closet

Amazing "Before & After" pictures are all over the interwebs - I find that they do one of two things to me. They either inspire me or intimidate me. I feel like if I can't turn my closet or my washroom into a beautiful oasis worthy of a Better Homes & Gardens Magazines front page spread I might as well just leave it the messy hole that it is.



Don't do it! Especially if you have no closet doors (like me) to hide the mess. So I followed some simple rules to closet de-cluttering.

  1. If you haven't worn it in 6 months donate it.
  2. If you've only worn it ONCE in the last six months just so you don't have to donate it on your next closet purge, you should still donate it. :)
  3. Keeping clothes that you don't like to wear or don't make you feel good just to have a full closet is not a good idea.
  4. Try not to use your closet for storage. I was keeping these items in my closet although I'd never wear them:

    While I definitely want to keep my cheerleading paraphenalia, it's unlikely I'm going to break it out in case of a rain storm. So to the keepsake chest they went!

  5. Use one type of hanger - I had plastic (in blue, white, purple, turquoise, black...), wire, Zips, and store hangers. This makes for a cluttered look, so I went for all white plastic (which I had the most of) and added some wooden skirt hangers from IKEA.
  6. Use extra space. I put up some 3M hooks that I had around the house to be able to hang a few things that were just piled onto the top shelf.
  7. And finally, if you have three cats, bring the vacuum to address the dust/hair bunnies (ew)
Then stand back and feel good about the work you put in even IF you don't have a mini chandelier, striped walls, or anything fancy like that.

So who's in? Is it time to clean out your closet?

2 comments:

B2B said...

So, did you keep Cheer Bear? I hope so :)

KLS said...

I definitely kept Cheer Bear. :) I also still have my original Cheer Bear that was my childhood BFF and then I bought the one pictured when they re-released them some years back. I'm an emotional sap. :)