Clothing
A couple weeks ago I decided to create a "family closet". The idea came to me as the girls and I were folding and putting away laundry. I am hoping that as they continue to help me with this, it will quickly become their responsibility. We fold all our laundry on my bed - just steps away from a beautiful, spacious master bedroom closet. In their room, they had baskets on shelves for their underwear, socks, pajamas and pants. Because I wanted space for their toys and dress up clothes, I had their shirts and dresses on the higher hanging bar - which they couldn't reach.
By moving all their clothes to our closet, they can now reach them, which allows them to get dressed more easily and put their laundry away. It also eliminated the need for a laundry basket in their room.
The other big benefit was that it helped me purge my clothes.
FAMILY CLOSET BEFORE
FAMILY CLOSET AFTER
What you can't see from this photo are the shelves we share. The other pictures I took from other angles showed too much of my husband's share of the closet. Since this is about me and not him, I wanted to show you the progress I made. I hope you notice there is only one shoe box left and 2, instead of 3, baskets on the top shelf. Also, the pink storage bin under the girls' clothes is gone!
I don't usually focus on counting how many things I own, but I was shocked to find out I owned 132 pieces of clothing before this purge. I have decluttered my wardrobe so many times in the past two years - I never would have imagined I still owned so many things. My goal was to have a maximum of 100 items after the purge. I am happy to report that after getting rid of 36 things, I am down to 96 (which is still an insane amount of clothing!) I'm sure that I will dwindle it down even more.
I love this idea. Unfortunately, we only have a tiny closet in our room, and NO closet in the room of our three boys. : /
ReplyDeleteIt has revolutionized our laundry experience and it a great way to keep the clothes to a reasonable minimum. We don't have dressers so everything has to go in here.
ReplyDeleteWith no closets you must use dressers....no closets would be hard. When I did a Compassion home visit in Peru, They each had a dog food bag on their beds - I'm assuming this was their "closet". Can you imagine?
Wow. Isn't it amazing how quickly clothes can add up? I definitely never counted my clothing before but I can only imagine it must have been somewhere around 200. Yikes!
ReplyDelete96 is excellent! And you have the space for it... just as long as you wear each one of those 96 items!
I love your idea of a shared closet for the family, especially since your girls couldn't reach their closet rod. Teaching them to hang up their clothes at a young age may seem small, but it's those little lifestyle habits that will stay with them for life.
Looking good!
Tanja
This is an excellent idea. We are moving to a new house and giving our son the largest bedroom with the largest closet (the smaller bedroom has the attached bath). This seems like it could be a great solution for storing our clothes. At the very least my son and husband could share a closet and I could have our tiny bedroom closet to myself. Thanks for the inspiration!
ReplyDeleteJaime...I would say try it at the very least! I wasn't sure moving everyone's clothes into our closet would work, but I was willing to try. And I love it!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of a mindful family closet. By circumstance we have two closets for our four-member family. Our closets are under our eaves and slanty-ceilied so we can't have the high and low bars. My husband and I share one and my son and daughter share the one in his room (her bedroom doesn't have a closet). I recently (this week!) reduced my clothes to 74 items - I can now have my entire wardrobe out instead of the seasonal thing I used to do. I just found your blog - and love it. Thanks!
ReplyDelete