My name is Taylor. You may have heard of me, I am one of Pamela’s lovely assistants! She is out of the town for the week. You can read more about where she is and what she’s doing here. So, I am filling in! Hope you don’t mind! Now, I know that most of the time when you have a guest post, they’ll often link you back to their personal blog site. Well I don’t have one yet. This is me getting my feet wet. If it works out for me, I may try my hand at blogging. Enjoy!
I recently went from living alone to being married… and Pamela taught me well in the whole “we need all the clothes/shoes/jewelry/things” lesson of life. My closet was the proof. Now, my husband and I share the world’s tiniest mobile home which also means we now share the world’s tiniest closet. Something that I am NOT the biggest fan of but for now it’ll have to do.
Pinterest is my favorite. I am on it everyday searching for things I can do to make my home a more functional and happier place (Pamela also talks about this here). While searching one day last year I came across this pin. It gave great advice about how to slim down your closet and realize that you don’t really wear everything in there. Since the now “shared” closet was beginning to be so packed that it was dysfunctional, I decided to give it a try.
The pin’s suggestion was to turn ALL the hangers in your closet backwards and as you hung up items that you have worn you hang them up correctly. At the end of the season you will be able to really see the items that you never touched. I thought that was great and all, but I could BARELY hang one more item up let alone re-hang everything backwards without having to go to physical therapy for all the lifting. So, I decided to just hang the items that I knew I didn’t wear often backwards (nice party dress and a a sequin top that I only pull out for new year events.) Then everything I wore recently was to be hung on the opposite side of these items.
(I also did this to my husband’s side but he doesn’t know this yet! Shh…) Can you find the dividing hangers?
I loved how this not only would lead me to clean out my closet at the end of the season, but it also:
- made me aware of what I wear TOO much
- allowed me to see growth in the side of recently worn items
- allowed me to see a shrinkage of clothes on the never wear side
- forced me to wear more clothes on the never wear side for fear I would lose them
- forced me to throw out items that were too small or not flattering as I tried them on instead of waiting until the end of the season.
In January I started working at a physical therapy clinic. This means that I have to wear scrubs on the regular. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather wear something a tad more fashionable. So I began to really love Friday-Sunday. These are the days that I could look and feel my best. This month I began to notice myself pulling more and more from the recently worn section, and I have way too many clothes to be limiting myself so soon.
We spent the last weekend in Baton Rouge/New Orleans and I made a point to ONLY pack from the other side of the backwards hangers. The Abyss.
And I was thrilled with my outfits!
Maybe this idea works for you, maybe it doesn’t but I challenge you to evaluate your closet. Notice what you might be wearing too often or not enough. Throw things out that make you feel uncomfortable (trust me, this will make you feel like a million bucks when you’ve thrown out the tight, uncomfortable things and the rest of your clothes truly fit and flatter you). Do you have any tiny closet tips? I would love to hear them!
Loved the closet post! As empty nesters, I now own ALL the closet real estate in our house, along with attic storage, so it’s easier for me to just move stuff around rather than streamline — but I recently did a ruthless closet purge, donating never-worn items to a friend who needed them! Win!
There’s something magical about finally doing that closet purge that we tend to put off. It’s probably time for another one in my house!