Master Closet Overhaul

Hello my friends! I’m back today to share something with you that has literally changed my life; like actually changed my life. I have been reading a lot about capsule wardrobes, and while I doubted I could ever pull it off, with my continued reading and research I came across a book that so many minimalists and organizers were raving about – The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (affiliate link).

After reading a bunch of Pinterest’d articles about this amazing book and seeing some pretty incredible closet transformations I purchased the book on Amazon and sat with my Kindle to learn the tips and tricks. The most important thing I learned early on in my reading was the need for this project to be all encompassing. While often times I tackle the closet (or any other project) a bit at a time (today the shirts, tomorrow the pants, etc) this time around I took a different approach altogether. By the way, you'll have to excuse the photos in this post. It was nearly impossible to get any well-lit photos in the space!

Although my husband was not impressed with my plan, I started early on a Saturday morning by pulling E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G out of the closet in our master bedroom. We made a plan to specifically touch every single item in the closet to see if it met the magic criteria – Does it spark joy? If the item wasn’t something that we had worn recently, or could see wearing again, it had to go. In the same vein, if it was something that we had worn recently, but we didn’t love it, it too had to go.

I swear, the things you learn about your husband when you work on a project of this size together? I swear, this man had over 40 plain white undershirts!! I understand, you need to have one for every day, maybe for two weeks worth if you are worried we won't get to the laundry one weekend.... but he had over a MONTH's worth of white shirts!! I convinced him to reduce this stack...a lot.... He still has a lot of plain white t's though!

I’m going to be honest, it was tough. I thought that I had already done a good job paring down my wardrobe. I also knew that it was would be painful for my husband to actually get rid of things. His theory was that if someone bought it for him, he couldn’t let it go. Together we made this criteria for his clothing choices: would he wear it to take me out to dinner tomorrow night? If not, it had to go. This, of course, did not apply to jerseys…. Most of those “made the cut” and had to be kept.

Now, we’ve all done big closet purges, so what, you ask changed my life? The KonMari clothes folding technique!! I used my collection of tank tops (which previously numbered in the 40-50 top range, and was pared down to about 20, which still seems like a lot, but I layer them with everything!!) and used this folding method to lineup and organize my tank tops. It was so amazing that I decided to go through both of the girls’ drawers of tops and used the same technique. You want to talk about sparking joy? That two hour process sparked some serious joy for this mama!! I realize now that I didn't take photos of this step... thankfully I had two little girls' dressers full of clothes to practice on, so there will be a post on that later!

At the end of a very long day of sorting and organizing, I managed a three laundry basket high pile of clothing donations. I added five purses to the pile and was pleased as punch with my progress! My husband managed to purge his side of the closet of two huge garbage bags of clothes for donation!

Another important trick when completing a big overhaul like this? Purge the hangers!! OMG we had a TON of hangers!! I had purchased some of the lovely velvety hangers a couple of years ago, and used only those on my side of the closet. My husband used a few of the old ones, but mostly the new type. We had so many hangers that needed to find their way out of our house! If we didn't have any extra (well we had a few extra velvet ones left over) we wouldn't be tempted to fill them up with more stuff.

I can’t wait to finish reading this book!! I want to see if I can finally move our household into our ultimate goal – becoming minimalish. Thanks for stopping by today! I really appreciate it!!


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