in this photo is every piece of clothing I own. Well, except for what I was wearing at the time and a small pile of stragglers left at my boyfriend's house. The closet and dresser were packed pretty full, the plastic bag contains all that stuff I said I was gonna donate in January, and the rest is pure dirty laundry. Oh and the white thing hanging out of the laundry basket is the handle to my Dust Buster, I thought that was a good place for it for some reason???
So fueled by my Ice Capp (also pictured above) I went through everything, starting with the dresser. I sorted things with these criteria in mind:
Things I wear often, that I like, that fit me: Keep pile
Things that are unique, things I loved that don't fit me anymore: Sell pile
Things I just wanted out of my house as soon as possible: Donate pile
Things missing buttons or shoes that need resoling: Mend pile
Things full of stains and holes beyond repair: Straight to the waste bin
So this is my dresser after sorting through everything, drawer by drawer. I also organized it slightly: Top drawer is for underwear and such, second is for pants and shorts (and some t-shirts), third is t-shirts, fourth is sweaters.
Lately when I do laundry I've found myself running out of hangers to put things on. When I went through everything in my closet, I was left with ALL OF THESE!
This is three huge garbage bags filled with clothes and shoes to donate. Instead of letting them sit around my room until I could con someone with a car into driving me to Value Village, I sucked it up and called a cab. These bags are gone now. Gone! seeya later, nice knowing ya.
My mending pile is on the chair, and the stuff on the bed is laundry I need to do. SO MUCH LAUNDRY.
My closet now. I also sorted through a huge basket of scarves I had on the shelf in here. I never wore ANY of them because they were up there out of sight. Now I have the ones I like tied on that bar where I can easily see them. I keep my belts on that bar as well. Note that I've also found a better home for my Dust Buster, HA.
And now I'm left with this: My sell pile. Local swap groups are full of flaky people and Canada Post is so overpriced that I don't know if selling online will be viable. Since the weather is so nice, I'm thinking a yard sale would be a good idea. Any Charlottetown ladies want to have one?
This whole process didn't take as long as I thought it would: about 2.5 hours, snack breaks included. Maybe it's because most of my clothes are from thrift stores (cheap), but I didn't find it hard to get rid of anything either. I also rediscovered lots of things I'd forgotten I owned, and I found my headphones which have been missing for MONTHS.
If you've been thinking of doing some closet-related spring cleaning, DO IT. It's easy! It doesn't take very long! It makes you feel real good afterwards!
I could so be down with a Ch'town Yard sale!! I definitely have some clothes and shoes I could stand to part with.
ReplyDeleteGo you!! I know how hard this can be, and I think that people posting their purges can be just as inspiring as shopping posts so thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI have got a "value village bag" sitting by my closet...I cannot even tell you how long it's been there!
ReplyDeleteThat so funny because i just went through all my stuff too, just this morning! I ended up with three bags to be donated. It's so nice going through everything and getting rid of all the old stuff you never wear, makes room for the new stuff. And I found a bunch of jeans way in the back that i used to wear all the time, yay!
ReplyDeleteIve been doing this for weeks, I keep going back making sure that I am 100% honest with myself
ReplyDeleteI love donating things, thinking of the next person who may pick it up and give it a new lease of life! My next free weekend I am going to be all over this. I tend to do it gradually but am going to do it all in one go and it will be so s a t i s f y i n g
ReplyDeleteI think about and do clean out my closet fairly often, but this post and the one you posted that inspired your purge confused me. Like, that one gal wanted to get rid of 80% of her clothing. That seems excessive to me.
ReplyDeleteWould you say you had a lot, like A LOT a lot of clothes, or just a typical amount of clothes, similar to any other girl with an interest in fashion?
hmmm it's hard to say! i know that if i was ever able to keep up with laundry and had it all washed and put away it would NOT fit in my closet and huge dresser, which to me is way too many. i thought about counting out how much i kept and how much i got rid of but i knew that'd just distract me. i probably got rid of around a third to a half of what i owned! blogging opened my eyes to just how little of my clothing i actually wear. I had all these clothes that couldn't fit in my room and I wore the same few skirts and one purse all the time!
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