I’ve been meaning to cull and organise my wardrobe for months! Our wardrobe can get out of control very easily. It’s not a big space. I had to sacrifice that when we built this house because I couldn’t make it bigger due it’s position on our house block. But I was ok with that because it meant I could not hoard and I had to minimise the crap we had.
Last week I decided I could almost halve that wardrobe. I was over all of my clothes and only ever wore the same few things. Fashion isn’t really my thing so I have a few nice things, but I mostly have house clothes! My husband works in a trade so he doesn’t have fancy clothes either.
I do, however, keep all of his suit stuff and any big winter jackets in another hanging space in one of my boys’ bedrooms. Chevy has a ridiculously large cupboard so I can easily steal a section of his space. I also keep all of my shoes in my wardrobe whilst the majority of my husbands are kept in the garage on some shelves.
So I got started. I brought in a roll of garbage bags and started ruthlessly culling… It was not pretty for a while and I dreaded starting it, but I knew it had to get worse before it would get better!
Slowly it started coming together… Here are my tips:
- If I didn’t wear it last season then I’m not going to wear it again. Time for it to go. This includes shoes!
- If I didn’t fit in to it last season then I’m not going to. Time for it to go. And I say this kindly to myself because if I did lose a few kg’s in the future then that means I’ll treat myself to something new rather than holding on to old clothes. I did the same thing with my husband’s t-shirts. He had 80 of them but only wears/fits about 5! Ha!
- There are no fancy storage systems in my wardrobe. It’s just a matter of throwing out and only putting back what I need. I’m not fussy about coat-hangers, or colour coordinating clothes. It’s all black, black, black and little bit of animal print 😉
- I am down to 3 pairs of jeans. I used to have about 7 pairs (and they either didn’t fit, or I didn’t like the shape). I now have 2 blue and 1 black pair.
- I have only 2 handbags now + 2 special Kate Spade bags I will keep forever. Long gone are the days of 20 bags shoved up the back of my cupboard!
- The majority of my cosmetic jewellery is gone.
- I have a tub sitting on the floor which holds the off-season shoes. Rather than collecting dust I’ve piled them in there.
- The little white cupboard holds the underwear, pj’s, winter scarves and belts.
- I threw out old underwear which had seen better days. I then treated myself to some new stuff. I popped in to Best & Less and grabbed my usual black ‘Mum’ undies (I’m getting too old for fancy stuff!).
- The little step ladder stays in there permanently and I make sure I used every bit of space, even right up the top.
I’m so happy I got this job done. It felt good to donate 8 bags of clothes to The Salvo’s this week. All the hanging clothes now have room to sit neatly rather than sandwiched against each other. Even my husband was impressed!
So, you don’t need to go and buy ‘things’ to help you sort out your wardrobe to make it workable and liveable. The best thing you can do is be determined to cull it right back and just work with what you’ve got. You need to be prepared to let go of things. And to be more ruthless! This big clean out made me feel better in so many ways. I don’t feel like I am holding on to any “maybe” stuff anymore.
Are you in the middle of cleaning yours up? Or is it on your to-do list?
