Cutting my closet in half and finding freedom

In my last post I shared how I came to wanting to cut my wardrobe in half after a bout of bed bugs. Here, I'll show you how I did it.

First things first, I emptied all those trash bags of clothes onto my bed. I needed to see, in front of me, just how many clothes I truly owned.

I saw before me a horrifying mess of dresses, socks, tshirts, PJs, etc. etc. etc.

My next goal was to look at each item and toss it into either the "keep," "donate," or "maybe" pile. I tried to do it quickly and rip off the bandaid before I had time to convince myself to keep it. 

As soon as I picked up a piece, I asked "Does this bring me joy? Have I worn it recently? Am I keeping it out of guilt? Do I have negative memories associated with this item? Why do I want to hold onto it?" And I was harsh. 

I tried to only keep items that fit into at least two of my "life categories." For example, shirts that paired with a skirt could be business/business-casual, or paired with jeans could be casual. Or dresses I'd wear to class and to church. Or to the office and to class. You get the point. I kept a limited number of "casual only" shirts or "evening only" dresses. The more versatile, the better.

I dumped three Hollister cardigans that had seen better days, but were still in good shape, I had owned them since my senior year of high school, and honestly, as a wife and soon-to-be-in-the-real-world adult, I knew I needed to part with Hollister. It might have been my teenage style, but I'd never shop there now. (No judgement if you still love Hollister - if it brings you joy, keep it!) 

I also dumped two blouses that fit, were cute, and even in the color scheme I like. However, they weren't overly flattering and felt very "boxy" on my short self. They were also winter colors and extremely thin, so I found myself passing them up for a sweater (I live in Southern Michigan and the high right now is 10 degrees) almost every time. Bye bye! 

Here are my piles, top to bottom - "Donate," "Maybe," "Keep." You can't see the full "keep" pile, but it was about as large as the "donate" and "maybe" piles combined.

Once I had sorted everything, I went back through the "maybe" pile and made decisions. I donated most of the maybe pile, only keeping a few items I decided I loved enough to keep.

Then, I took the "keep" pile and folded every item on the bed according to type - dresses, casual tops, cardigans, work-out, work clothes, skirts, pants, PJs, business/church tops, sweaters. That way I could see how many items in each category I owned.

Then it was time to be super harsh. I tried on every item that I hadn't worn in the last two weeks, to make sure I really still loved every last one. Believe it or not, I purged a few things even from the "keep" pile after the try-it-on test. 

Primarily, I dumped my excess pajamas. I kept two summer sets (a tank/short set and a nightgown), and three winter sets (footies, a fuzzy nightgown, and a fuzzy polka-dot set). Let's be honest, we have favorite pajamas and the rest end up rotting in the bottom of a drawer. Time to change! 

As I said "yes" to each item, I hung it up, or rolled it "KonMari-style" in my wicker chest. 

It's all the rage now to have a minimalist/capsule wardrobe, where you only keep "X" number of clothing items and only items that "go" with every other item in your closet. Now, that sounds great in theory, but I had one major problem: I LOVE DRESSES. Seriously. I purged at least 5 of them and still had 24 left in my closet (not to mention 10 skirts). That's 2/3rds of a typical capsule wardrobe just in dresses, and they usually suggest having only one, maybe two dresses. But I wear every single dress I kept (The 24 includes sweater, formal, casual, summer, spring, fall and winter dresses). All of them bring me joy! So, am I crazy for owning 24 dresses? Probably, but no regrets! 

Capsule wardrobe lovers also suggest two or three sweaters. Clearly these people don't live in a cold climate! I have to walk around campus in below-freezing temps and even as much as I love dresses, I don't wear them as often during the month of February. So I kept 8 sweaters, and feel no guilt about it.

After the purge, my clothes neatly and easily fit in my closet. Instead of packing away summer clothes to "make room," I can now fit everything in one place to keep an eye on just how much I have. 

 To the left you can see my wicker chest of work out wear, work clothes (I work part-time as a horticulturist assistant), PJs, pants, and scarves.

My final task was to tackle my atrocious shoe bin. (To the right).

As you can see, finding shoes in said bin was nearly impossible. I'd usually end up frustrated and just pick whatever was on top.

Frustrated no longer!

I purged shoes I didn't wear, that hurt to wear, or that didn't go with nearly everything. Where some girls might have a gazillion pairs of shoes, I have a gazillion dresses, and multi-purpose footwear. I kept one pair of rain boots, snow boots, black dressy booties, brown dress boots, black flats, maroon flats, silver heals, black heals, maroon heals, and two pair of nude heals, as well as two dressy sandals, one pair of shower flip flops and one pair of slippers. (Black and Maroon are my "colors" so to say).

And then, I was done!

I had a giant contractor trash bag of clothes to donate, which included 5 or 6 formal dresses I had purchased from Salvation Army in the past for formal events and wore once. I didn't count each item, but I'm pretty certain I passed on as many clothes as I kept.

I also went through my bathing suits and got rid of the newest one that I felt the most unattractive in. I purged all panty hose that had runs in them. I tossed every sock without a mate. I threw out the panties that, if they are the only clean ones left, make me go do laundry (I don't like doing laundry).

So remember, be harsh, but don't be unrealistic. I kept a pair of "crazy pants" that I got from my aunt that only match one or two shirts I own. However, I wear them often because I love them!

I hope this might have inspired you to also go through your closet and keep only what you love. Maybe t-shirts are your go-to style item. Keep as many as you wear and love. Maybe you only wear jeans. No problem with owning 7 pair (or 17!). The only problem is owning stuff you don't wear.

Be free!