Conquering Clothing Clutter: My Closet

Welcome back to "Conquer Your Clothing Clutter week!  How are y'all doing?  Any clothing clutter progress?  So far I have researched and shared some tips and worked on our boy's shared closet.

Today I am sharing a few updates that I made in my personal closet, to make it much more effective and easy to keep organized.

When I last left off, I was REALLY loving our recent addition of the his and hers armoires.  We had done the walk-in closet thing, and it was crowded and a challenge to share.  There was very little space to navigate, no way could we be in there at the same time.  We filled it with too many clothes we hardly wore and could never seem to agree on a consistent organizing system or where the cut-off point was for his clothes and mine.  So when we began to renovate the lower level, I decided enough was enough, a simple wall removal gave us a nice big dressing area.  The new area allowed us to use two cheapo IKEA armoires as his and hers closets.

I have been living with them since November of last year, and taking note of what was working, and more importantly, what was not.

Working:

• The size is perfect.  It really keeps me in check with my wardrobe and clothing purchases.  I only have so much space so I really need to be selective about what I own and keep things nice and pared down.
• The shoe rack we popped in the bottom has been splendid.
• LOVE the huggable hangers!  They give me plenty of hanging room and nothing slips off the hangers.
• Having my own closet space was beyond words fabulous!  
• I love that the doors conceal our storage, providing less visual clutter when everything is all closed up.

Not Working:

• Using baskets on the top shelf for undergarments was a bit of a daily pain.
• Using a box for tanks {on the top shelf}.  I wear tanks under my clothes daily, so another pain to pull down the box and dig through it each day.
• The shelving was spaced far apart, so I wasn't able to maximize how it was used.  Items were all stacked on one another, my sweaters would often topple.  When I wanted to pull a pair of paints out of the stack, I had to re-stack the rest to put back.

To begin with the armoire update, I took those "problems" and started thinking of potential solutions.  Overall, the answer was simple;  I wanted to hang my pants or add extra shelves to reduce how many items needed to be stacked, and put my undergarments and tanks in drawers {vs. boxes and baskets}.

Since I couldn't add additional wooden shelving {it wasn't designed sturdy enough or with enough shelving notches}, I decided some sort of drawer system was the solution.  Who knew it would be SO hard to find anything that could work.  The size of the armoire was proving to be a bit of a challenge.  I searched high and low for solutions that were the correct width and depth.  I finally found an Elfa system at the Container Store that was intended for pantries.  Perfect depth, width and height and it had customizable drawer sizes and mix and match options so we could wave some features and take some pennies off of the final cost.  Surprisingly, this was my first ever Elfa system purchase {it is a bit pricey so I usually find alternate less expensive options}, but we had a 20% off coupon and it was the ideal solution, so we took the plunge.  I have been glowing ever since!

First order of business was labeling the bins.  I went with stick on bookplates:

The bookplates just stuck to the drawer fronts, and I slid in printed labels.

I ended up being able to remove a few items from the hanging side, and categorized the drawers as: Bras, Undies, Workout, Tanks, Long Sleeves and Denim.

Since I just took away the home of my dress pants, I found these pant hangers on sale at Target for just a couple of bucks.  I snagged two.  And because I removed some shirts from the hanging side, I had no trouble making room for the ultra slim pant hangers.

Sweaters, shorts and accessories all made their way to baskets that we already owned:

I don't mind those items remaining in bins/baskets since they are used less frequently and are now corralled {vs. stacked and tipping}.

After Monday's inspiration post, I decided I wanted to add a place to keep outfit ideas.  I have zero style, and although I have been using Pinterest to find great ideas from super fashionable bloggers, I don't check Pinterest in the morning when getting dressed so it hasn't been doing me much good.

A few square cork tiles from Target and some left over project fabric and I had new inspiration boards inside my armoire door:

Then I just browsed Pinterest and printed my favorite clothing combos:

And pinned them onto their new boards:

Throughout the entire process, I made sure to do a quick edit/paring down of items that I haven't worn in the last year.  A reader said it perfectly the other day when she said, "You only wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time".  I found that to be somewhat true, so hopefully the new idea board will change that!

Now my armoire is much more organized and functional!  Everything is simple to find and simple to put away.

How about one of those super fun before and afters?

Is it weird that I actually love putting laundry away now? 

And yes, we are still super smitten with our dresser update as well!  The room is progressing nicely!

Next up.  My ten year old's dresser.  Please send me strength and well wishes as this one won't be easy, he didn't get any of his mama's organizing genes....