While I was a stylist I was asked many times to look up past purchases. Many women couldn't remember if they already had a certain pair of pants or blouse in a different color. We buy so many clothes and stuff them into our dressers and closets just to forget them. How many times have you bought something and got it home and couldn't remember why you liked it in the first place. Or the sales associate talked you into buying it because they work on commission. (BTW, us gals at Evereve do not work on commision. I don't know about other stores, but the one I was at - we were always honest. We wanted you to walk out of the store feeling and looking amazing! I love those girls!) There is such a thing as retail therapy. When you are overwhelmed and you feel you don't have control over much in your life, you can control what buy. Studies show that shopping, even window shopping, makes you feel happy. We can talk about studies all day long, but shopping is all about the feels! When I go into a store and it is all messy I walk right out. I don't even look around at what they have because it's too overwhelming for me, too chaotic. I like the stores that are all nice and color coded, the shirts are folded with the folds all aligned, the jeans need to not only be sized, but zipped and buttoned too. I enjoy playing with colors and textures. I understand this is not for everyone! For some, shopping stresses them out. For me, when the store is merchandised well, it is very relaxing and therapeutic. For some, it is just the act of buying something, anything brings happiness. I am an organizer and a mom, I can help your over crowded closet get some air.
Finally, onto closet organization!!
Step 1: Take It All Out!
That's Right!! I said it. You heard it correctly. Take it all out. If your closet is divided into sections, you can do it section by section. When I have all the clothes out of the closet I go through each item looking for stains, holes, and pilling. If the item has any of these they go into the trash. Then I check for fit and style, if all is good, they go into the stay pile. The rest go into the donate pile. I switch out the hangers for the felt ones because they take up less space and they grip the clothes better than the plastic ones. I donate the plastic hangers too.
Step 2: Clean Your Closet
I like to take my Norwex
enviro wand clean the baseboards and shelves inside the closet. I am always so surprised at how dusty my closet gets. I clean my baseboards every 3 months because it is so easy with the wand and a spritz of water. I also take wax paper to the rods that the hangers hang on. This helps the hangers slide more smoothly and if you were starty to get any scratchy sounds, this will stop that. Run a vacuum to finish this area off. If you have any drawers, or jewelry boxes, move those, dust and vacuum around them too. Go through them, declutter and clean - don't leave any stone unturned.
Step 3: Put It All Back!
My friends and I talk about this all the time. We all do this differently but in the same way. I like my clothes in this order:
strapless: spaghetti straps,tanks,muscle tees, short sleeves, baseball tees, basic tees,
then in another section light basic sweatshirts, sweatshirts, cardigans, light sweaters
then I go by the color of the rainbow
Some of my friends group their clothes in larger sections by colors.
Who organizes the right way? Both are right!! They are right for us. I need my groupings to be extremely detailed in order to make sense to me. When my friend saw my closet it was chaotic to her because the colors were all jumbled. And to me, her closet has too many different seasons jammed into one area.
Before going on this journey I didn't realize there were different types of organizers.
I get many questions about how to organize when you have ADHD. I have personal experience organizing for a child with ADHD. Some things are not always easy because of space, but we do the best we can with what we have. Please remember that! We do the best we can with what we have! When you're organizing for someone with ADHD use smaller open containers to keep 'like' things together. With so many children we bought 2 colors of socks so I didn't have to match them. I just had a basket of socks in the hallway and they would be able to grab 3 socks and I knew they would end up with a match.
When my girls were little, instead of dressers they had organizers like pictured to the right. I loved them because they didn't need to fold their clothes. They would just toss them in the bins and their rooms still looked pretty.
What are your closet hacks? Please share!!
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