Spring Cleaning in the Closet

This post might make you hate me...IF you are too hasty. You may think I am an overachiever. You may feel inferior. But rest assured, the reason for this post is because in the organization department, chances are I am just as hopeless as you. Let's be honest, we all want to have organized lives. It looks nice and makes us feel better. But what gets into the way? Busy lives. Limited space. Laziness. Reality TV! These were all my excuses until recently when an honest friend looked inside my closet and without reserve said, "Oh honey...you really need some help. Start with all the same Costco hangers." Thank you blunt friend. I was a mess. And I needed the honesty.

Game on! I settled on a three-fold goal for my closet reinvention:
      ONE - uniform hangers
      TWO - pictures on shoe boxes
      THREE - re-use/recycle hangers & clothes

GOAL ONE - change to one uniform hanger. This has been a lifelong goal in that anal part of my head. Rows of the same hanger have always dazzled my eyes but seemed only right for the Kim Kardashians of the world with closets bigger than my bedroom. My practicality always said this was a waste of money. Problem solved when someone gifts them to you. Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law :)

before - mishmash of a closet

My gifter purchased sets of 35 No-Slip Hangers from Costco at $9.99 each. You can't even buy 35 plastic hangers for this! First, I love that my clothes look orderly (heaven), and secondly, they do not slip off the hangers anymore. But I will warn you that it does take a little longer to get clothes on and off these no-slip hangers. This actually has made me more judicious in taking things off, and on a positive note I've been creating less mess. Some hangers have also broken (sigh), but at this price, I can afford to replace them.

 

I took this all a step further by hanging my clothes by color. Nice, huh? The organized part of my brain does a happy dance with every visit.

GOAL TWO - affix pictures to my shoeboxes. I have a lot of shoes. A lot. Too many perhaps. For the most part, I've kept all my shoeboxes over the years - one score in the organization category for Katie! However I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I've accumulated so many shoes that my memory cannot match the shoebox with the shoe anymore. As a result, I spend too much time opening boxes to find the right shoe. And since most of my shoeboxes are high up in my closet, I have to get on a step stool to reach them. Juggling shoeboxes on a step stool = dangerous! 

before

It did occur to me that I could go out and buy those nifty see-through shoeboxes but my thriftiness won out. My compromise was to print out color pictures of my shoes and tape them to the boxes. I did this by using my iphone (a camera is just as easy) and took pictures of all my shoes. Then, I went to the nearest drugstore and connected my USB cord to their photo kiosk to have them printed out.

Once the pictures were printed, I cut them to size and taped them on all my boxes. Alternatively, you can print these pictures on your color printer (if you have one.) Love that I can now see where all my shoes are at a glance! And no more juggling shoeboxes on the step stool anymore!

after - with pictures

GOAL THREE - reuse/reycle hangers & clothes. I could have been really lazy and thrown that huge jumble of hangers in the trash. But I believe it's my responsibility as a good citizen to reduce my carbon footprint and be aware of how I dispose of things. Did you know that dry cleaners recycle hangers? I love that mine does. By the way, I heart CD One Price Cleaners! $2.49 to dry clean any item is a steal! ($1.49 for laundered items like men's button down shirts). Anyway, I did recycle the majority of my hangers and donated all my colored plastic hangers to the Salvation Army. The rest I am re-using in my coat closet. Yes, I had to lug around hangers to two different places, but I felt good about doing the right thing.

Next on my list was to purge clothing. This is hard for someone who did not have a nice wardrobe when it mattered, like in high school. Consequently, I tend to cling to clothes. But I was resolute and let go of all my size 2s that I always hoped that I would fit back into someday. "Size 2 is never happening, again," said my reality harshly. True that. Also hard to say goodbye to were those worn but beloved pieces. The ones that I saved my clothing budget to buy and served me well. I looked fondly at my first sweater coat that kept me warm every day when I used to work in advertising. Despite the nostalgia, these items were no longer in the 20% of my closet that I wear 80% of the time. You know this rule...so helpful in clearing out the clutter. Off my clothes went to my size 2 friend and the Salvation Army.

Tips:
- Use the 80/20 rule to get rid of the bulk in your closet. Keep the 20% of your clothes that you wear 80% of the time.
- If it's hard to give away once beloved clothes - give them to a friend.
- Leave extra space in every part of your closet - this will help keep the clutter away.
- Do tackle one area at a time - it can be overwhelming to do the whole closet at once.
- If you are a homeowner, do fill out that tax return sheet when you drop off your donations to Salvation Army or Goodwill and claim them on your taxes. For my household, they add up to a few hundred dollars every year. Yeah tax return!

This is the end of my spring cleaning closet saga. It took me quite a few days (um...weeks) to pull this off, but I can most assuredly say that my closet is now a delightful place. It is not only satisfying to look at but I can actually find things - what a concept!

Spring is here, despite the low temps and blasted snow flurries that tell us otherwise. It brings renewal and that is just what happened in my closet :) Where will you find renewal this spring?

Summer Coming Sooner Than Later

Summer seems so close, but yet so far away. I keep thinking of all the things that I can't wait to do once it gets warmer. Ride my bike everywhere, al fresco dining, leisurely walking...and weekend getaways. Last summer, I was fortunate enough to be invited to my friends' family cottage on Lake Huron (only a hop, skip and a jump to Mackinac Island.) We spent a wonderfully relaxing day at the beach where I serendipitously took these shots. I have a DSLR and decided to play around with my manual settings - monochrome, ISO, and plus 1 or 2 exposure. Some of the pictures turned out...dare I say...stunning...which I attribute less to skill and more to my sweet subjects, their body language, and the backdrop. Coming across these pictures again, I am ready for summer and Lake Huron. I hope to be invited back this year!

Picture Gallery Walls

I don't know about you but I absolutely ADORE picture gallery walls and have been forever pining for one and pinning them on Pinterest. While visually...very... appealing, there is something awfully INTIMIDATING about arranging the perfect combination of colors, styles, and pictures. You know what I mean - a well done one looks like a work of art. Case in point below.

{futuredomesticgoddess blog}                                  {Escape blog}

For months I have pondered, "Am I worthy enough and do I possess the chops to tackle such a hallowed design project?" My head spun with the multitude of options. Do I do black and white? Vintage? Contemporary? Vibrant colors? All white? Ultimately indecision prompted me to simply stall for 5 months before I finally began. Have you had that before? Plain paralysis because you are unsure how to initiate? Yep - me.

 

My inspiration was finally sparked due to procrastination. If procrastination was an art form, I would be Picasso (and yes, that is a Picasso print in the picture above. It's called "Face of Peace," and it reminds me of the serenity I found in Spain last summer on the El Camino de Santiago.) When I'm trying to not do something I should be, I suddenly find other things I "HAVE" to do. The gallery wall became that thing a few weeks ago. And despite the fact I was rather dubious that I could pull it off, luckily I was only doing a "small vertical wall." This gave me courage! If I screwed up, I only had a small space to patch and repaint. 

I started by pulling out all my currently unused frames and one vintage mirror that I found at an antique mall this past fall. Then I spent an afternoon hitting Target (Nate Berkus has a new home line there), HomeGoods (always inexpensive), and JoAnn Fabrics (40-50% sale) to purchase any and all frames, regardless of style, that piqued my interest. I lined up the frames and sat with them for a couple days. No, I didn't sit and stare at them for hours [silly]! What I mean is that I looked at them periodically, and every so often I'd play around with different layouts. I recommend this because I eventually pinpointed the ones I just had to keep and others I could do without. 

INSPIRATION

Simultaneously I have been redecorating my guest bedroom (another post for another day) and that is turning out veritably vintage. So to mix things up, I decided to stray away from 100% vintage and landed on eclectic mix - fusing contemporary, vintage, and classic - inspired by Genevieve Gorder, designer and host of "Dear Genevieve" on HGTV. (Fyi: Her show is fabulous; she brilliantly and seamlessly mixes styles, if you're into that). See picture above.

 

Of course I wanted pictures in my gallery wall, so I selected a couple wedding photos and a picture from one of my favorite places in the world: Cinque Terre, Italy. However, I wanted to vary the frame contents, just like Genevieve. So where did I go for inspiration? Pinterest strikes again! I found three DIY projects to incorporate into my wall - treasured bible verse in continuous cursive, surname initial stenciled on burlap, and Paper Source fine paper in a frame. I did all of these in a day! I suppose it helped that I already had burlap, acrylic paint and stencils in my craftwagon :) From there, it was all a cinch. And finally here is the output of all my efforts.

BEFORE (boring)

AFTER (inspired!)

Have I inspired you? I hope so. Pull out that project that has been collecting dusty cobwebs in the creative part of your brain. Stop thinking and just do it! The metamorphosis will be worth it and transformation will breathe new life into your space. Procrastination begone, let inspiration begin!