Spring Cleaning: Clean Out the Closet

I guess that I'm lucky that we are moving this month. I can kill two birds with one stone, clear out the house to have less to pack while also doing a bit of Spring Cleaning.

Yesterday we started with the closet. You know that tiny room packed with things you never wear, and you just keep hanging it up, or tossing it in the back somewhere never to be seen from again.

Here are a few tips to easily clean out the closet and start off Spring feeling fresh and renewed (at least in that corner of the home).

1. Give yourself or an hour or two to do this project. Start from one side of the closet and work your way to the other.

2. Grab the items you are not sure of, or have not worn in awhile. If something is in the closet that you love and wear often, there is no reason to take a look at that. Leave it hanging up. We all have our favorite go to pieces, why mess with perfection?

3. Try on the items and see how they fit. Remember, don't hold onto something with the mindset that "One day I'll lose the weight to fit into this". It rarely happens!

4. If it fits, take a look at it. Are there any holes, rips, stains etc that can be fixed? If so put it into a maybe pile. If there are any defects in the garment, put it into a donate or trash pile.

5. Now be really honest with yourself here. Do you love it? Have you worn it in the last 6-12 months? If the answer is no to both questions, throw it into a donate, trash or sell pile. Yes, a SELL pile. I found several garments of luxury brands that were in near perfect condition that I never wear, and even in some cases have NEVER worn. These can easily be sold on Ebay and give you more money for something you would really love and wear often.

6. Don't hold onto the sell or donate items very long. You could potentially forget about them, and toss them back into closet ruining all your hard work.

7. My biggest tip about cleaning out the closet is just to be honest about the item. Are you in love with it? Have you worn it recently? Will you ever wear it again? Is it dated or out of season?

8. Now arrange your closet by season, then item, then colors. This makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. For instance my closet goes (from left to right), casual short sleeves (tees, polos, etc), then casual long sleeve items (pullovers, l/s tees), then dressier long sleeve shirts (collared dress shirts etc), then into light weight sweaters, zippies, pullovers, and then into heavier sweaters and hoodies. And then within each grouping they go from darkest to lightest in color.

9. Do this with your shoes as well, and then put all the shoes into clear shoe boxes (mine are from the Container Store). This keeps all your shoes visible so you can grab them when you need them, and no shoe is forgotten. We would never want that.