Less Is More: Cleaning Out My Closet

At my room in my parent’s house, I am lucky to have both a full bathroom and a small walk-in closet.  That’s not even mentioning the gorgeous window.  With a very good amount of space, you would think I would be organized, but because I only live there three to four months out of the year, I have to get into a new routine each time and that usually means living a little disorderly for a while.  Well, I decided I was not going to settle for another cramped closet this summer.  I only have a little over a month before I go back go school, but because rearranging things is so easy and quick, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from having the closet of my dreams (my affordable dreams, that is).

Here is how it was organized to begin with:

Left side

Right Side

Here are photos of what it looked like before I organized it.  I left it exactly as is because I wanted you to see how I really use it and also because I was too lazy to pick it up before I was going to tear everything out anyway.

View of left side.  I put that pink vintage apron over some of the shelves because I thought it would make it look pretty.  It just made it look even more cluttered.  My clothes actually are very organized by type (tops, bottoms), cut (long sleeve, short sleeve, tank top, skinny jean, bermuda shorts, etc.), and color, but they layout of the closet made them look disorganized since they can be easily viewed upon entering. This is what the floor always looks like.  I couldn’t fit my flip flops and some old shoes in the shoe rack so I put them in a small tub.  I’m trying to get myself to get rid of the scale, but it hasn’t happened yet.  The small piles of clothes are clothing that I rewear, such as work out clothes (why clean them when I’m just going to get sweaty again the next day?) and jeans that I didn’t stretch out or spill anything on.

If I had a wide angle lens, I could show you the whole right side.  This is basically what it looks like.  Above the shoe rack is the memo board.  Between the shoe rack and green canvas nighstand are reusable bags that I sometimes remember to take with me when I go shopping.  On the nightstand is my jewelry box and a bag full of belts, and above that is a garment bag hanging from the top shelf.

Basically the problem was not that I didn’t have enough storage, but that the location of the storage was not working and I needed a place to get some of the things off the floor.

I started by taking everything out besides what was on the top shelves that are still disorganized and will be saved for a later time that will probably not be worth writing about.

Pretty!  Wish I could leave it like that.  By the way, the closet is green because that was the color my walls were before I painted them the light tan.  There was no point taking apart the closet system to repaint a small closet.  Plus, it’s a breath of fresh air!

Out all the clothing, shoes, and accessories went.  Don’t look at it too long – it’s embarrassing and it kind of disgusts me.  Moving on!

Thankfully I have a lower end closet system.  I say this because it means I can move things around really easily.  I ended up flipping the layout of the left side so that the hanging clothing moved to the far side of the wall and no longer smack me when I walk through the door.  Unfortunately now all of the tops are facing the wrong direction, but I’m going to let that slide.

I got rid of one of the shelves and left more room to stack t-shirts, camis, and pajama bottoms.  I also moved the bag of belts to this side because there was some extra space.

I moved a hanging basket under the lowest shelf next to the hanging bottoms to put the clothes I rewear so they no longer sit on the floor.  I keep extra hangers to the left of that and any bags beneath that.  I still need to put them in a tub.

The right side is almost the same except I got rid of the memo board with the pictures (it was too much for such a small space) and replaced the standing shoe rack with a hanging canvas shoe organizer I had stored in the basement.  Because the shelf on this side is so high and I am so short, I had to hang the canvas shoe organizer off of a wire basket I hung from the long shelf but I ended up using that to store the purses so it all worked out really well.  Now that the shoe rack is gone, I can fully open the door and check myself out in the mirror.  Ha!

And a view of the whole thing:

  Much better!  You can see I kept the tub of flip flops and my tennis shoes, but I organized them much better.  I got the scale out of there so that I can give it to a friend or find a better place to store it so that I’m not using it every day.

I’m very pleased with how it all turned out.  When I step inside, it feels so much bigger and there is nothing on the floor that could get in my way.  Although I didn’t get rid of anything during this less is more project, I organized my small closet so that it no longer looks like there is a ton of stuff that cannot be effectively stored.  I should go through my closet again and donate a few items, but for now, this project was enough to satisfy me.  And I did it all in one afternoon!  And this isn’t to say that this closet is perfect.  I am working with a budget which means I didn’t buy anything new.  I could have bought nice wooden hangers to replace the mismatched plastic ones I have (if I had money), but really that would defeat the purpose of living with less because I would be adding more.  I love it the way it is and can now focus on other areas of my life.  That is exactly what I set out to do with this series.

Is your closet performing to its full potential?