ok, friends….i’ve declared this week…..
here is a before shot of the left side…
a before shot of the middle…
and a before shot of the right side…
he tends to have a lot of clothing because he receives his big brother’s hand-me-downs. i wanted to clean his closet first to make room for anything that would soon be coming from our 7 year old’s closet.
here is the issue i was talking about….see how high his pants are hanging? they are on the top rack next to the sweaters..
before i got started, i grabbed a pen and paper so i could jot down any notes about what was needed…
and i also grabbed 2 medium-sized bins to place summer clothing in that could still be worn next year….
then i got to work pulling out items and sorting and re-hanging. here i was sorting underwear, swim trunks and socks…i have quite a few of these old ikea dividers…like the dividers i used for our candle organization last week…
these dividers work great in closets for corralling items like socks, mitten, hats, and underwear.
below, you can see i moved all of his pants to the lowest shelf in his closet for easy access. the next shelf up is underwear and socks. the next shelf up is pull-ups (we’re still working on night training). the following shelf is another package of pull-ups and a bin of mittens/gloves. and finally i placed his piggy banks and random momento items on the very top shelf…out of reach from little sister…
i then sorted through all of his shirts…and put them in groups of short and long sleeves…
we can see his shoes now!…
as i worked, i tossed items out onto his bedroom floor…check out this pile! and i was only halfway done at this point!…
once i was done i sorted those items into donations, eBay, garage sale, and trash…
and finally – here is his newly winterized closet!
top rack is jackets and sweaters. bottom rack is PJ’s…
the middle section, pretty much as you saw it above…
the after for the right side – top rack has school uniforms…bottom rack has shirts…
you’ll notice in the after photos i had one bin on the very top shelf tucked into a corner. i pulled out only the items i knew would fit him next spring and summer…including swim trunks, shorts, short PJ sets, summer hats, sunglasses, and flip flops…
these are all now living in this bin and out of reach.
if this doesn’t tell you exactly how much purging i did….i don’t know what else will!….
before shot of the middle…
before shot of the left side…
(sorry it’s not a better look inside – our house has odd angles)
oh, did you miss this pile of ball caps on his floor?…there’s only about 40 of them!…
and why we have kept these empty shoe boxes is totally beyond me…
ooooooohhh, there’s his baby memory box!…totally makes sense to have *that* in there….
once i had surveyed the damage/work ahead of me, i dug right in.
i am VERY happy to report the first items out of there were these…
we rarely have any night accidents, but he still wanted to wear a pull-up to be safe. over the Thanksgiving break, HE decided he was totally done and had the confidence to not wear them anymore. SO proud of him! these went straight into little brother’s closet!
he has a great hanging organizer in his closet. since we don’t have a dresser in either of the boys bedrooms, this has been a great, inexpensive piece for placing anything we don’t want hanging on a hanger. or for odd items….like ball caps! i moved all of his sweaters to the hanging organizer, and then moved all of his pants to the bottom 2 built-in shelves….
the built-in shelves now also have his underwear, hats and mittens, socks, cub scout uniform, belts…and the top shelf has his piggy banks.
muuuuuch better than on the floor!….
the middle top rack has his coats and dress shirts….the middle bottom rack has his pi’s (sorta hard to see them – they are tucked around the corner in there)…
the right top rack has his school uniforms and the bottom rack has his shirts…
his shoes are under his shirts…
as i cleaned, purged and sorted, i placed any possible keepers for him or little brother in the other bin…
after tucking the bin away on the top shelf, i spent a quiet moment looking through his baby box…
ahhhh, look at that newborn baby cap!! how is it possible he is SEVEN!?…
after wiping my tears (i’m kidding!), i put the baby box in the office closet…and got back to work. here was the stack of items i tossed out of his closet…
whoooooooa would be accurate!
since i had a load of shoe boxes for recycling, i figured it might be a good idea to finally go through my mountain of magazines.
what can i say? i was very motivated by this point!
so i went through my stack and came away with this….
nope, didn’t get caught up in the thinking of “but i really want to read those” or “i would love to see what their holiday collection is this year”. the way i see it, by the time i finally read those magazines, it may well be summer 2012. instead, now i can feel great in knowing i have saved myself HOURS of reading magazines just because i have that pressure to read them….because they are there. anyone relate? sometimes it’s better to let go and start fresh. some of these magazines were from the summer….time to go!
and truly, i still have about 20 magazines left in my stack that i will actually read. it feels good to release that sometimes!
when all was said and done, here are my TWO black trash bags of garage sale items…
the trash bag on the left is to be donated and the bag on the right is all of the recycling…
YES, that would be FOUR large black trash bags….and my house is smiling with FOUR less trash bags inside of it.
have you gone through your closets this season? do you live in an area of the country where you have to change out wardrobes for spring/summer and fall/winter? share your ideas with us!
You inspired me to go through my boys' closets! Donated 2 boxes of too-small clothing, switced over to winter and packed away summer! Feel much lighter. 🙂