It’s time to start our Spring/Summer Closet Organizing Project. This is a project that I really like doing. I will have several posts for this project. We’ll start with cleaning out our closets, organizing our keepers, planning a wardrobe system that works for our lifestyle, making a shopping plan, and learning how to maintain this system all season long. For those of you who want or need to keep your wardrobe simple, I’ve also got a plan for that. So, let’s get started.
First, we’ve got to clean out the clothes in our closet. We always need to start by separating our spring/summer clothes from fall/winter clothes. If you have a separate closet for off-season clothes, that would be ideal. If not, try to put off-season on a different side of your closet. So for this spring/summer project, move your winter clothes to a different closet or to a different side of your closet.
Then, take your spring/summer clothes and lay them out on your bed or a hanging rack, if you have one. This sounds tedious, but you really need to go through this process for a wardrobe that will work for you. Go through each piece of clothing and make sure it passes all of these criteria:
1) Worn out, holes, stains? Toss!
2) Still in style? Keep!
3) Fits right, flattering for your body type, flattering color? Keep!
4) Appropriate for your age and lifestyle? Keep!
As you check each piece, the keepers go to one side and the items to give away go in a pile on the floor or in a bag. Now we’re going to take the keepers and put them back in the closet in sections. I like to organize my clothes in sections, with a different section for each part of my life. For example, if you don’t work outside the home or work only part-time, you could organize as follows:
1)Dressy-Church/Work
2)Nice Casual
3)At-home Casual
If you work full-time from Monday-Friday, you could organize your wardrobe like this:
1)Weekday Clothes (Work)
2)Weekend Clothes (Nice Casual and At-home Casual)
So, after you decide what sections you need, you will put each piece of clothing that you keep into the proper section. And then, within each section, put similar items together, such as pants, skirts, dresses, tops, jackets. Then, with each group of items, such as your Weekday Pants, organize by color, such as darkest to lightest. You now should have your clothes in sections, with like items together, and colorized. Then, to the right of all sections, I have a separate section for layering pieces like tanks, camisoles, jackets, and coats.
Now you need to go through your shoes, purses, underclothes, and jewelry. Again, you should check each piece and decide if it is in good condition, still in style, and fits. Put your keepers back and throw the rest in the giveaway pile. Now, stand back and take a look. It should look neat and organized and awesome!
If you feel like you don’t have much left in your closet, don’t worry. I believe in quality over quantity. Most of us have at least a few good pieces from last year. Next, we’ll figure out exactly WHAT we need to add to this wardrobe to really make it functional. We’ll continue our Closet Project by looking at what pieces we should add and how to prioritize our list to make it easy and fun!
Trench from Express, Umbrella from Target