If you want to get ruthless in #decluttering your #closet, set a maximum number of hangers or limits on how many of which category of garment you will keep, says Simple Lionheart Life. You can track garment usage to ensure that only your favorites stay in rotation by turning the hangers in your closet around; after you wear an item, put it back hanging the right way. Any garments still hanging backward at the end of the season can likely be #donated. Or for a more immediate #purge, imagine yourself wearing each item of clothing or outfit when you run into an old friend or acquaintance — would you look and feel your best at that moment?
Tag: closet organizing
Start Decluttering With a Single Closet
Don’t make #decluttering into an insurmountable task — start with just one #closet. Pull everything out and sort it into #keep, #trash and #donate piles. Clothing you enjoy wearing regularly are easy keepers, while items that are too damaged, stained or stretched-out can go directly in the trash. What goes in the #donate bag is a little more nuanced: Maybe an item doesn’t fit, never worked as part of your personal style, or was part of a too-small “goal” outfit that now only inspires anxiety, CNET says. Send those #garments to ClothingDonations.org immediately, set a new goal and reward yourself with a new outfit when you achieve it.
Streamline Your Wardrobe as the Seasons Change
Fall begins on Thursday, Sept. 22, and most areas of the country will soon enjoy cooler, crisper weather. As the seasons change, one’s wardrobe has to change, too; shorts and T-shirts won’t be of much use as temperatures tumble from summery 70s and 80s to the 60s, 50s and below.
Without getting into the weeds on what the Vogue fashionistas say is and isn’t in style this season, The Organizing Blog would like to remind readers that this transitional time is a perfect opportunity to #edit your #wardrobe.
As you reintegrate cold-weather garb into the daily routine, take a look at the #summer clothes you did and didn’t wear this year. Sort out the items you wore back into a closet or a storage bin, and trash or #donate the rest. You didn’t need them this year, and you won’t in 2023.
Summer-only clothing that makes the cut but should definitely be packed and stored for next year includes short-sleeve tops, open-toed shoes, beachwear, summer shorts, tropical prints, and linens and other lightweight garments, says The Closet Edit.
Wash or dryclean these items and store them in tucked-away baskets, plastic bins or a closet that’s distinct from your main or go-to closet. Then you can begin to integrate all of the fall and winter clothing you stored last year into active rotation.
As you make room in your closets for those fall garments, you’ll find items that didn’t get worn and shouldn’t have been stored last year. #Trash or #donate these garments unless you have a compelling reason to keep them. Perhaps you lost a few pounds and those old pants fit again?
There will also be #transitional #clothing items that you wear year-round and #accessorize according to the weather. Since they are subject to heavy use, check to see what’s going to continue to serve you through the winter, and what’s come to the end of its useful life.
As always, bag up any lightly used garments that you don’t need or want and contact ClothingDonations.org to schedule a free, #contactless #donation #pickup. We’ll take those items off your hands and resell them to fund valuable #veterans programs.
Here’s to a fashionable, #streamlined and #organized fall and winter!
Sort Your Clothes by Season
Sorting and storing clothing by season helps save space and can actually streamline one’s wardrobe, according to Apartment Therapy blogger Abby Stone. Since making a habit of going through her clothing regularly, she was able to keep only what works for a particular season on hand and at the ready, avoiding duplication and making it simpler to get dressed in the morning. With a single season’s clothing in the closet at any given time, Stone was able to eliminate an entire dresser’s worth of storage, saving space.
Get Your Style On for Fall!
There’s a crispness in the air, leaves are beginning to change and the summer sky is giving way to fluffy fall clouds. What does all of this mean? It’s time to conduct the semi-annual closet shift—swapping out the summer wardrobe for warmer fall/winter clothes.
But don’t just trade one pile of clothes for another. Changing seasons can be a great time to purge those lightly-used or not-at-all used items from your closets. Face it, if you haven’t worn those coral printed crops or that Hawaiian shirt the entire season (and perhaps even for seasons before), it’s time to clear some space for clothing you will wear.
In Real Simple, Rebecca Daly offer six helpful tips to help you purge those items from your closet*:
- The old bag you used to love, but now just takes up space on your closet shelf! When cleaning closets it can be easy to focus on clothes alone, but don’t neglect to review the other items that take up space—like those bulky bags you no longer use.
- Old undergarments. Another closet item or dresser drawer item that tends to be overlooked is undergarments. If you’re not wearing them, throw them out—or, if there’s still useful life in them—add them to your donate pile.
- Stained clothing. So your favorite white beach cover-up somehow has become stained with unidentifiable spots. If you’ve washed and dried the item, those spots aren’t going away! It’s time to toss!
- Well-worn old sweaters. We all have them. Piles of sweaters that are full of pills, snags or stretched beyond recognition. Put them in the discard pile!
- Shoes that have taken their last steps. They may have been beloved at one time, but if the heels are worn off, the toes are scuffed or they simply don’t fit quite right and you rarely wear them, it’s time for them to go.
- Those old jeans that just don’t have the right look or fit anymore. If they’re baggy, holey, or following a style trend that has seen its day, it’s time to part with them, regardless of how well-loved they once were.
There! Doesn’t that feel better? Once you’ve gone through your closets and drawers to declutter and dismiss, you’ll have room to welcome the new fashions and trends that will keep your spirits up over the fall and winter months.
*Oh, and by the way, as you’re doing your fall closet clean-up, keep us in mind. We’ll come and pick up your gently-used items and find them new homes—benefiting our veterans in the process!