Now is the time to take those warm weather clothes out from under the bed and start storing winter clothes. It's also a great time to evaluate whether it's time to retire some of those outfits to make room for springtime:
Sometime clothes no longer fit our bodies or we've outgrown a certain style. You'll know right away. Unless something is an absolute favorite, this is the easiest time to let go. We're guilty of gaining a bit of weight over the cold LA winter months and not all of our summer clothes are fitting. Rather than hanging onto clothes that don't fit and then measuring our success on whether we can fit back into them, we're willing to let things go to make space for things that fit. Likewise, there are things that do fit, but that we aren't really into anymore. We're letting it go.
Some other tips for spring cleaning the closet:
- Put away those winter clothes so they aren't taking up space (unless of course you have more room in your closet than you know what to do with). We keep them in a giant plastic tub that slides under the bed. Remember if you're storing wool things to add a cedar block or 2 to repel moths from eating holes in your favorite pea coat.
- Using the 80/20 rule (that we wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time) start putting clothes away at one end of your closet after you wear them so that at the end of the month you'll have a good idea of the things you wear most and the things you hardly ever wear. Can you let anything go?
- Arrange a clothing swap. We do this with friends each Spring (and sometimes more often). We all bring clothes we're willing to let go of and we swap. This way our clothes get recycled and we get new pieces for free while spending some quality time with friends.
- Invite a friend over and get another perspective on what outfits are working if you're unsure. We've been trying to invest in some 'grown up' clothes since we're approaching 30 and still dress like a teenager a lot of the time. Nothing wrong with it, but it helps to get another perspective.
- Hang up the clothes you love and put the rest in your Outbox and see if you miss anything by the end of the month.
- We like to use wooden hangers since they're all the same color and they're better for hanging clothes. Ikea and Target both sell inexpensive versions.
- To keep things fresh, we leave either a bowl of dried lavender, a sachet of something nice smelling or old dryer sheets in the closet.
- Don't forget to go through your shoes!
What do you do to clean out the closet?
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I have a closet karma theory: Things that you like send out good karma, and things that don't work send out bad karma, and you want to have the largest amount of karma possible!
Let's say you have ten things in your closet, and you like seven of them, but three of them aren't working (it no longer fits; it was expensive, but you don't like it anymore; your grandma gave it to you, but you've never worn it, etc.). Every time you look at those three items, you feel ugly or guilty. That would mean that you are getting seven positive karma points and three negative karma points. Even though there are ten things in the closet, you only get four closet karma points! However, if you got rid of the three bad items, you would only have seven items, but you would have seven closet karma points!
In short, getting rid of items that harbor bad energy makes you happier. It feels great to open the closet doors and like everything inside. It makes getting dressed in the morning a lot easier, too.
I'm clearing out old clothes this weekend...
...to make room for the new ones I have on order.
:-)
I love Lizzy's good/bar karma applied to the closet and it's very true. I've been cleaning my closet today (It had a lot of documents, papers, magazines on its shelves)- and it has made me happy to know that I wear all of the clothes I have and I find them all pretty - maybe I have a problem?
I meant to say bad not bar...
thanks for the list. never thought to put recently worn clothes at the end of the closet for rotating!
Lizzy, I like your approach. I'm ruthless when it comes to my closet.
I would like to know where you got the picture for this post. Was it from a catalogue? I wouldn't mind purchasing a similar set up.
nut-meg, looks like West Elm to me.
I'm being forced into closet cleaning by moving in with my boyfriend. It's working pretty well so far. I only moved over the freshly washed laundry this week, but it was great to wake up and have a choice of clothes I actually wanted to wear for once.
I love Lizzy's ideas too! Never thought of things that way. It really helps in clarifying my confused addiction to all the clothes, shoes, belts etc etc that have overtaken my life. Thanks Lizzy!
Where did the boxes come from. I need storage for some of my small stuff. I am definitely going to do this for my closet. It needs to be purged.
Really, this is the very useful information about the spring cleaning. Remove every item from your closets, section by section. Remember you're going to spring clean the wardrobe, not just shuffle the items, so create three piles-one to keep, one to store for next winter and one to donate to charity.
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