8.03.2010

Another Closet Clean-out! Elizabeth's Closet

Until last week, Elizabeth's closet was an absolute disaster.  Every time I opened the door, I became frustrated and shaky - I hate disorganized closets.  Here are some BEFORE pictures -


Over the weekend, I decided to take 30 minutes to really clean it out and reorganize.  The general lay-out stayed the same and I did not have move any of our Elfa shelves (although that is an easy task), but I did remove a lot of stuff that she has outgrown.

I generally sort outgrown kids' clothing into 3 categories:
  • Keep - Birthday dresses, my favorite holiday dresses, and some other things that I can't part with just yet for sentimental reasons.  This stuff goes in the attic much to Jim's horror.
  • Give Away - The cutest, highest quality stuff that still has a lot of life left.  Fortunately I have several friends with kids a year or two younger than mine who happily (I think!) take hand-me-downs.
  • Sell - All of the rest of the stuff I sell in our annual yard sale (more on that here).  We donate whatever is leftover after that advanture.
So, I started the organization process by sorting out piles of outgrown clothing which had accumulated on the floor of the closet and took down things that were still hanging but no longer needed to be in her closet.  After that, I took pretty much everything else out and sorted out some trash and other yard sale worthy items (which I store in plastic bins in a closet in my basement under the stairs).  Finally, I reorganized all of the out of season clothes, refolded them, and repacked them in larger clear plastic boxes that I had on hand.

The whole project ended up taking more like an hour but it was worth it.  Everything fits and it's easy for Elizabeth to put her clothes in the hamper, and find her dress-up dresses which hang on a low rail in the closet.

Here's the after -

Her shoes are organized in a hanging sweater organizer that I found at HomeGoods last year.  The small basket underneath holds her dress-up shoes!

For future outgrown clothes, I put a couple of paper bags in the back so I can toss in whatever is outgrown.  Hopefully this will keep the discarded items off the floor, and easier to hand off when I'm ready to part with things.

Another closet organization project conquered!

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