Over the last few weekends, I have been setting aside time to do some major 'new year cleaning!' It always feels great to purge & I have been purging every area of my room, from old files & papers in my desk to my jewelry, my sock drawer & the biggest task, my closet. Out with the old & in with the new seems to my latest mantra! Today I'm sharing my tips for cleaning out your closet!



1. Take EVERYTHING out. Take the piles off your shelves, toss the shoes into the middle of the room and take the clothes on hangers out. This way you are starting with a clean slate to organize & use space in the most effective way! 

2. Assess what you have too much of & what you don't have at all (or need to buy new). While cleaning things out I noticed a few things, I own a ton of colorful & printed items, but my most worn items are neutrals & solids. I also noticed that I definitely was in need of some fresh white t-shirts! Making these notes-to-self, helps you to realize trends in what you wear and made me more aware of what was worth buying & what wasn't the next time I hit the mall.

3. Make 3 Piles: Put Back into Closet, Sell/Donate & Trash. The first one is easy - take items that you love & wear all the time and put them back in your closet (make sure you check out tips 4 & 5 for how to organize them!). Next tackle pile two; take anything that no longer fits, is no longer your style or you haven't worn in the last year and consider donating it or selling it. I love using Poshmark & ThredUp to sell my gently worn items. (You can follow me & shop my closet at mpo715 on Poshmark!) I have a bunch of items in my closet that I've only worn once or twice and using these resell sites is a great way to give a piece of clothing a second home! Lastly, is the trash pile. Anything that is ripped, stained, etc should be trashed.

4. Organize by Type & Color. For the items that you choose to put back in your closet, don't just randomly put them back. Take time to organize each section of your closet. First organize by type - put dresses together, jeans together, blouses together, etc. Then organize by color - I go from light to dark in my closet but anyway you choose to organize will be helpful. The next time you are looking for your LBD, you can find it in a hurry!

5. The Hanger Trick. As you hang things up face your hanger hooks TOWARDS you. After you wear something, hang it up again and turn the hanger AWAY from you.  I decided to try this one as I cleaned out my closet the most recent time.  At the end of a certain time period (I'm trying 6 months), you can see what you've worn and what you haven't.
** This one is a little tricky because you need to remember to turn the hangers which I haven't been always doing!! But it's also interesting because I am seeing pieces that I reach for over and over again.


Hope you find these tips helpful! Let me know if you have any organizational tips to share!


Hope you all have great weekends! I am planning to go to my second work out class in a week! (Who am I?!) Plus, we have a fun dinner event to go to on Saturday night with friends! 

XO
Michelle Paige