Closet Reveal

It has been over a week since I posted last... yipes! But I really wanted to wait to post until I could give you the closet reveal that I promised.

Today, friends, I finally conquered it.

Now, understand that our closet is not big. And yet, it is the largest closet in our house. It has to house more than just my and hubby's clothes. Through the years it has gotten bad. No, no... it is really bad. And I must be crazy because I'm about to show it to you.

Welcome to the world of our closet.

This view is looking at the shelf in the top of our closet to the right...


And looking at the shelf to the left...


What you are seeing is mostly blanket, sheets, sewing and comforter/pillow storage... We currently have a lot of dirty laundry, so this is not even the worst of it.


Here is the bottom of the closet. I am not sure at all what lives down there...

And for the honest view when I open my closet door...


Excuse my towel hanging on the door and the dirty laundry to the side of it. In all honesty, my whole bedroom needs a good cleaning. You know what they say though, right? If you aren't putting things away, it's because there is no where to put them. That is so true in our bedroom. That' s why I'm starting with the closet. Our clothes need a home.

So here are the rules I went by to clean out our closet.

1. I am not cleaning out hubby's stuff- only mine. He can go through his own clothes/stuff.

2. I am getting rid of things. I am in the mood to get rid of things.

3. Find solutions. Don't just re-organize junk.

That being said.

Here is Problem #1. We have a ton of sheets and comforters and seasonal clothes with no where to store them except the attic. (We don't even have the ability to store clothes under our bed because of the type of bed frame it is- and no money to buy a new bed frame.) Have I mentioned before how I hate storing clothes in the attic? I am always so sure they are going to get mildew-y or bugs in them.

Enter Solution #1.
Vacuum seal Bags!!!

One day my hubby decided we needed these and he brought them home. They have been sitting around for a month or two now. They were not exactly cheap. I think they were between $11 and $17 a box (my hubby bought three!) but now I am glad that he did. Saving space is so important in our teeny house and this will certainly help us do it!

Problem #2. Too many clothes that I do not wear anymore or are out of season/the wrong size.

Solution #2. Time to sort: Too small/too big (needs storing), Give away, Wrong season (needs storing) And thanks to my vacuum seal bags I have a place to store all of the clothes that needed storing.


This is my highly advanced system of sorting on my bed. Blankets I can store on the top right. Clothes to give away as you move counter clockwise to the left, clothes that are sentimental but don't fit to the left of that. Clothes that are the wrong season or maternity below that and extra hangers after pulling all of the excess stuff out of my closet. Yay, extra hangers!

Here is what I wound up taking out of my closet

* one bag of clothes, etc to give to Goodwill


* two space saver bags full of wrong season clothes, blankets and comforters


* several small bags of fabric, etc that can go in the attic with other stuff just like it
* 2 wal-mart bags of trash
* a handful of important things (my rec center ID, my birthday card from our honeymoon, a checkbook, etc)

And this is the beautiful finished closet!

First, the shelf. My sewing machine and supplies are up to the right.


A basket where sheets and blankets (that we currently use in the right season) has room to live up to the left.

In the bottom of the closet remains our luggage, some duffel bags, a few wooden shoe stretchers (a request has been made to hubby to find a way to get rid of them) and a tripod. This all fits on the left side of the closet floor so that you can actually see the carpet now!

Here is the whole closet at a glance.


Much emptier? Check! Organized? Check! Problems solved? Check!

Oh yeah... I even organized my clothes there are on the right, so I would know how many clothes I actually have. You know how we all have the "I feel like I don't have anything to wear!" syndrome? I now have special event clothes furthest into that dark corner on the right, next is professional wear clothes/dressy clothes, followed by church-wear type clothes (which is even less dressy than professional wear) and every day mommy/baby-sitting clothes. So I finally understand why I have a full closet, but nothing to wear! I have a ton of special event clothes (old bridesmaids dresses) and a lot of professional wear clothes, but much fewer ever day clothes!

Now...

I wish I could say that I was done with the closet, but like I said, I am woefully behind on laundry. When our washing machine broke and then I got a really bad stomach bug a couple of weeks ago, I got behind and have not caught up yet. So I have three baskets full of clean clothes waiting to be sorted into put away, store or give away categories.


And if that looks overwhelming, there are MANY more dirty clothes than that hanging around the house waiting for me to take care of. But at least now I have room in the closet and spare hangers for them. I even cleaned out my drawer in our chest of drawers, so there is room to put away my clothes that fold.

Even though I am not completely finished with this process, putting away laundry and sorting it really is the easy part. Going through the other junk in the bottom and top of the closet and deciding what to do with was much harder. So I feel accomplished. Christian even said he is going to go through his own clothes now soon. Whoot! Whoot! I am doing a little "go me" dance in front of my computer now and giving myself a pat on the back.

Oh and perhaps the most important part... What was my 2 year old doing while I accomplished this great feat?

While I sorted the closet Melody...
* played with my skin care and lost the cap to my foundation primer (I found it later)
* turned my bedside table lamp on and off until I got suspicious that she was staring at the light bulb directly and might be ruining her eye sight for life.
* pushed her sock monkey in a stroller around the house and finally parked it and put a blanket over monkey so it could sleep.
* "read" her Bible in her room (she can look at the colorful pictures in her Adventure Bible for an unusually long time for a toddler).
* managed to put in a new DVD into the DVD player, turn the TV on and press PLAY on the DVD player to start watching a show without my knowledge. I thought I was crazy hearing music somewhere in the house and came out to find her Houdini skills with technology.
* generally played and entertained herself.

This is important because I am always worried that when I start a task or a project that Melody won't have anything to do and I won't be able to focus on what I'm doing. Today, Melody showed me (and I showed myself) that she is independent enough to play (without having to watch TV- I turned it off after she turned it on ;) ) and entertain herself while I do something else for a large chunk of the day.

After I finished with the closet, I took time to sit with her and play trains, blocks and pretend with her. Then we ate lunch and we both took a nap.

It was a good day. :)