Amy Beth

April 20, 2013

Project Simplify – That Pesky Closet

I’ve been a reader of Simple Mom for quite some time and now that I finally have a blog up and running, I decided to take part in the annual Project Simplify before-and-after posting fun.

Project Simplify on Simple Mom

Each week there is a different organizing or decluttering project to do around your home. It’s a way of channeling all that restless energy that’s been building up all winter. This week’s challenge was “that pesky closet.” While there are a few different closets in the house that could use a little help, I decided to focus on my closet, mainly because the challenge also happened to coincide with my church’s spring clothing drive.

So here are the before pictures. The clothes are kind of packed in there and I have some rather unsightly piles spilling out of my drawers onto the floor. Some of the things on the floor have been there for months…

![alt text](http://littleplacecalledhome.com/files/closet-before.jpg “Title”)

As much as I love pretty things, my purpose for this project was not to buy a bunch of new cute boxes and labels to make my closet more attractive. I was really just focused on the decluttering. I wanted to get rid of everything that I didn’t need. Getting rid of perfectly useful things is usually something I struggle with. I may not ever use it, but I think, “But maybe I’ll need it for…(insert unlikely scenario here).” I do much better when I feel like getting rid of my stuff will actually help someone.

Enter the spring clothing drive. Every year my church collects clothes from members of the congregation. Apparently the people in our congregation have an abundance of clothes because the clothing drive is always a huge success. All those clothes are then taken to a church across town that is located in a lower income neighborhood. That church invites the residents of the neighborhood to come by one Saturday and take any clothes they need. Everything is free. So when I’m debating over a perfectly nice shirt that fits me well but doesn’t really fit my style, I just think to myself, “There’s some nice young mom out there who could really use some decent clothes for work, but she never has the time or the disposable income to go shopping for herself. This shirt might look nice on her.” And into the the donate pile it goes! I got rid of two bags full of clothes that way. And now my closet looks like this:

![alt text](http://littleplacecalledhome.com/files/closet-after.jpg “Title”)

Like I said, I didn’t buy any new cute boxes, so the after isn’t quite as striking as some people’s might be. But there is nothing on the floor. And my clothes have room to breathe. And I can find what I’m looking for. And perhaps most amazingly, it’s been a couple of weeks since I did this and it still looks exactly the same. I’m currently trying the “hang your hangers backwards” system to keep track of what I really wear. If some of my hangers haven’t been turned around by the fall, I’ll be sending those things to the fall clothing drive.

It always feels good to get a task accomplished. Stay tuned for next week’s Project Simplify task: The Piles.

5 responses to “Project Simplify – That Pesky Closet”

  1. Izzie says:

    This is great! I really like that you didn’t go out and buy cute organizational things (that’s my temptation but we just don’t have the finances to do so these days), but just used what you had and truly simplified AND thought ahead for the next time with the “backward hanger system”–genius! Thanks for this post..I donated a couple bags of clothing too, but I know I have more that could be donated (or tossed). This was very encouraging! Looking forward to next week’s project.

    • Amy says:

      Thanks Izzie! I wasn’t sure if a post about my closet would be very interesting to anyone, so I’m so glad you found it helpful!

  2. Meredyth says:

    LOVE the backwards-hanger idea! I’m going to try it out and use the same system. Next year I probably will be donating loads of clothes! Love the blog, btw. I’ll like it on FB! 🙂

  3. […] And here was my last post for Project Simplify: That Pesky Closet […]

  4. […] other projects I’ve done as a part of Project Simplify were to clean out my Pesky Closet and conquer some […]