Work in Progress...

Ok, so for my first official post, I thought I'd tackle my closet. Aye, what a mess. My husband and I share a small walkin, and it needs help. First things first, getting out what I don't/can't wear. Hubby was a little tired of walking in there with piles everywhere and hearing me whine (I'll admit it, I whined) "I have nothing to wear!" So I started trying things on and if it didn't fit, it went in the donate pile. If I hadn't worn it in over a year, it got added to the pile. And so the pile grew and grew--way more than 10 things. What's left inside is more manageable now for sure, but I still need help. I need a few matching bins/baskets to line the top shelf on one side. I think I'd like to use those for little clutches and bags, scarves, etc. We also need a better way to secure our stacked clothing on the shelf. It's too easy for the stacks to topple over leaving us with the messy piles we currently have. I did separate my shoes some, and now I have my little sandals and flip flops in one of those under the bed shoes thing-a-ma-jigs. (On another note, how does my closet get so dang dusty? Hopefully my shoes will stay a little cleaner this way, at least those 10 pair!)

Anyway, the photos above are the befores (maybe not the worst of the before). Hopefully I can finish this project up soon--it all hinges on those upper shelves!

bedroom closet floor

My chore today was to tackle my bedroom floor... I forgot to take a before picture, but trust me, it was bad. I found our swimming clothes tub with lid under a pile of clean clothes. I had been looking for that tub. Sad huh? So, I moved EVERYTHING to my bed. I hung up what was clean. Made a pile for what was too large to be bagged for goodwill. Made another pile of what is too small for now and put them on a shelf neatly for later. Organized two dresser drawers in the process of finding tank tops and tee-shirts in the closet floor. ... All in all, an hour well spent. Here's my now CLEAN floor and I can shut the doors! Couldn't do that earlier today. That's how much was pouring out of there.



And here are my ten things. The black thing on the left... I don't even know what it is or what it goes to. The black shoes are too small now and going to goodwill. The leopard slippers are gross and you can't really see in the picture but the toes of the tennis shoes both have duct tape on them. Yah those two hit the trash. The orange bag smelled so it's being thrown out. The walmart sack is the contents of a purse long ago dumped out. I went through and saved two pens and a buck, the rest is being pitched as I obviously don't need it. And the bag is my "too big" pile that is going to goodwill and not staying in my house. So... lots more than ten and so glad it's done.

Next goal.... KEEP IT UP.

Closet part 2

Okay, I was too embarrased earlier to put the whole of the insides, and I still have a section to do, but at least I'm still making progress. This will be it for today though, I need to start on dinner and clear up the day's play... But this is a plastic 3 drawer mess also in my closet... and it looked like this this morning:

and this is it now:

Okay part 3 to come at some point this week or next

Today's 10 Things - Clothing

These 10 things were hanging in my closet, because if they were things I actually wore, they'd be in a pile on top of my dryer, or in a pile on the floor. Sigh. For now I am putting them up on the guest bed, then will bag them and off to Goodwill or the trash can.

Long, black, leather jacket ala The Matrix (why do I own this?)
Long, suit type jacket ala The Matrix (why do I own this?)
Three button down, cotton dress shirts
Cotton sundress that ALWAYS looked horrible on me
Two sleeveless tops, one ugly, one with a broken zipper
Pink sweatshirt
Corduroy, structured jacket with arms that are too long for me (why do I buy these things?)

Baby steps ...

Kate's Closet

Oh the shame.... But okay, here goes. If others can do this, so can I. Here's my way too cluttered, too many clothes in there closet. I have way too small clothes. Wayyyy too large (tent-like) clothes. Maternity clothes. Winter clothes... gracious.

The insides.

the floor.

the top shelf.

I started this task by pulling out everything on a hanger and deciding if it was too small, too big, fitting, in season, out or what... I made piles: Maternity, jammies, um ahem nighties, shorts, pants, shirts that fit and the mound clothes that are too small or out of date...

on the trunk are the mounds of maternity clothes that I can't (and shouldn't) wear right now.

the size of this pile is daunting... it's everything that is TOO small and can not fit and shouldn't be in my closet and WHY am I too lazy to have not done this before?! Most of this was on the floor of the closet or hanging with the rest, trying desperately to be a wearable candidate, but alas, they can not, will not fit.

This still needs to be handled but it will be left for another day... this is what's to the right of the shelf thing, behind the door.



And Ta-Da!

Here's the current status:

Only clothes that FIT on the two shelves (lower is jammies and upper is jeans and nicer pants) and only clothes that FIT hanging up in the closet.

Top shelf are all sizes that are too small still, but I things I didn't want to donate, in hopes of getting there again sometime in this lifetime and not wanting to re-buy everything. They are folded and stacked (and labeled) by sizes.

Oh and the floor is totally clean of everything but only shoes.

Stats:
-THREE trash bags full of clothes that are too small to be donated
-TWO trash bags full of maternity clothes (someone had just given me a lot of her things earlier in the year so her bag was still in there untouched) that will go up to the attic
-Two broken pair of shoes, no clue why I kept, that is now trashed
-One pair of heels that are in great condition, just too small to be donated or sold
-About 15-20 wire hangers trashed
-random tags and trash I found on the bottom of the closet trashed
-one really faded old nightie also hit the trash

Whew. I'm worn.

Clothes clothes and more clothes

My son has too many clothes. I'll be the first one to admit it. To gear up for the nicer weather, we got our kids a bunch of summer clothes. Great, right? Well turns out my son still fits in some of his stuff from last year. Ok, no problem there; we could always use the extra. Well then my dear dear sister in law comes over with a huge bag of hand me downs from her son, and you know what, they are still in great condition and really nice clothes. So I have way too many clothes for my son. Yeah, things could be worse but I need to get some organization with them and I need to get rid of the things I know he isn't going to be wearing.


My system in his room is to hang all his jeans, pants, sweats, long sleeves shirts, button ups, coats and short sleeve collared shirts. He has a good size closet so this all fits in there nicely. Because of the size of his closet we only got him one dresser. The dresser has 4 drawers. Top is undies and socks, 2nd is shorts, 3rd is tee shirts and 4th is pajamas. The dresser has just been stuffed to the brim with clothes, not including what we bought him and the clothes from my SIL. There is literally no room for me to put any of his newly acquired clothes away. So this was my main project this weekend. I was sick of seeing bags of clothes with nowhere to go. I just started emptying all the clothes knew he wasn't going to wear and putting them in a laundry basket. I filled it and bagged it and will give it to my cousin for his son....who then passes it on to another cousin with twin boys. We don't waste clothes in this family!!

Then after that I combined the new, the old and the hand me downs and folded them up and put them away. I put nicer stuff to one side of the drawer and the play stuff to the other. I still have anxiety over these drawers because they are packed. I can see clothes getting stuffed in there again. So my ultimate goal is to clean out the top shelves of his closet and put his nicer stuff in there where only dh or I could reach. I can’t see hanging his shorts and tee-shirts. So here are 3 of his drawers-shorts, tee’s and pajamas. I got rid of a lot of pajamas!!! Thank God!

(sorry I couldn't get the first pic to turn on blogger, I didn't load it in this way!!)

Then while my kids weren’t paying attention I decided to do 10 things from each of their rooms. I started with my sons. I got rid of 2 empty shoe boxes, a barrel of monkeys (OMG so annoying there are 10 in there and they never play w/ them there is just always monkeys laying around my house. He’s had this toy for like 4 years too and he could care less about them. I have no idea why I didn’t get rid of them sooner) a painting book that is filled up, an old place mat, a bag of straws lol, a stethoscope (we have more than one) a broken slinky, an old play phone and some random pieces of cardboard some w/ stickers on them.
I had a really annoying whistle that actually belongs to my DD in this pile……..but well she came up and stole it and started using it.
Next I went in my daughter’s room and looked for 10 things in there. When I tell you my kids have too many toys, I really mean they have too many toys. They have more than they know what to do with. 10 gone from each room is nothing so I didn’t feel too bad doing this!!! This is my daughters stuff-I got rid of an old boppy pillow-seriously, she is almost 3, why is this in her room? A drum she doesn’t use, 2 stuffed animals she doesn’t care about (actually she doesn’t care about any stuffed animals, these are just what I chose to get rid of because they are ugly and came from a dirty crane game) a pocket book she doesn’t play with along with a wand she doesn’t play with. A balloon I had popped, a random little top that goes with some doll, which doll it is or where she is I don’t know. A remote control car that doesn’t work. Finally there are 3 watch faces to a watch that she doesn’t care about and is lost somewhere in the world. I packed these up and threw them all in the trash before they had any idea

So that was my Sunday. Friday I recycled some magazines that have been sitting on a kitchen shelf for too long. We also have a wall size cabinet in our kitchen that is the kid’s cabinet. It has their cups, plates, crafts etc in there. It’s a big junk cabinet and I need to do something about it YET AGAIN. Things get thrown in there and it’s very unorganized. I took a tip from Morgaine and started small. I can’t imagine just sitting and doing the whole thing at once. So I picked one shelf and cleaned it out. I will do this a little at a time. One shelf down, 4 to go!

p.s. My husband cleaned out his side of the closet yesterday!! Organizing is contagious!

There's a chair under there!

This is one of my dumping zones. I wash and fold laundry and stack it right here. Then I dig in it for clothes in the morning and it ends up looking like this:

It took me two days of 15 minutes of work here and there (I'd sort through a lot of clothes in the living room while playing with the boys), but believe it or not, there really was a chair under there!


I was able to move things to my new and improved closet, moved the bench from the window to the foot of the bed, and got rid of lots of clothing to give to CHKD thrift store that benefits the local children's hospital.

Next task: armoire.