The Great Closet Purge

My closet is the bottomless of abyss, a cavern full of miscellaneous items, gifts bought ahead of time and mountains of clothing that mocks me with the tiny sizes and even more youthful styles worn by my mother’s daughter who was not yet my children’s mother. It’s one of those things that makes me anxious to even think of tackling, but today I got the nerve up to try yet again. This time, however, I’m in massive purge and pack mode, since we are getting ready for a major move and I don’t want to carry all the clutter with us. I haven’t the slightest illusion that we won’t still have too much stuff with us. I am just determined to make sure not to take all of the things I haven’t used or worn in forever, because it is literally dead weight that steals my joy by making it impossible to keep my home looking neat. First on the list is probably my worst personal offense- my clothing!

If you share my struggle with clutter, especially clothing, maybe my mad methods will help you out (or at least inspire you that a fellow clutterbug was able to get rid of so much junk), so I thought I’d share. If I can clear things out, ANYONE can! (Well, I can’t speak for actual hoarders. I’m not quite there….yet!)

My criteria for getting rid of clothing? If I haven’t worn it since my nearly three year old son was born, it’s gotta go. There are very few exceptions to this. I made an exception for a dress my mom personally made me a patchwork bottom for, because it’s still beautiful and oh-so-sentimental. Also, obviously I haven’t worn my wedding dress, but I’m not going THAT far in my purging!!

What are the categories for clothing that I am no longer keeping? Throw away, thrift store, and consignment. Throw away is for the clothing with more than slight stains, tears, etc. that I can’t easily repurpose into rags or something I can use right now. (If you do alot of DIY and are not drowning in your stuff like I am, you can think alot more creatively with this part. I’m overwhelmed, so it is gone, gone, gone!) Thrift store is for items that are still good, but may be very slightly stained or totally outdated. Consignment is for items that are in good condition and either timeless or stylish, because I can use them to get things my kids will be needing. The photo doesn’t include the two bags of thrift store donations I have headed on out. 🙂

How in the world am I sorting the clothing I am keeping? Well, ordinarily I’d divide them by season and put up the out of season ones. However, since I’m having a new baby this summer and plan to breastfeed her, I’m doing things a lot differently. I got a huge storage tub and filled it up with clothing I can’t wear either while pregnant or during the early days as a breastfeeding mom who will not only need to be able to access aforementioned breasts to feed my precious baby girl, but whose body is most certainly not going to be back to normal for the remainder of warm weather. All of the clothing that I believe that I can wear between now and cool weather I kept out. It’s not as complicated as it sounds, since this is my third child and I know exactly which clothing is too aggravating to try nursing a baby while wearing. LOL

Anyone else purging that cluttered mess of clothing in the closet??