Closet Update - Take 3!

There is something liberating about cleaning out a closet. I especially love when I have a donate pile in the end. 

I’m continuing my quest to reduce my wardrobe to a manageable size. And by manageable, I mean to only needing one closet. I started back in January with something called Project 333, in which you choose 33 items to wear for 3 months. I’ve been through two cycles and I’m loving it. The beginning of July marked the beginning of cycle number 3 so I thought I’d share an update on this project. If you missed the first and second cycle, you can click here and here.

Over the last three months, things got a bit out of hand. 

When it’s 55 degrees one day and 95 degrees the next, it’s difficult to have a set wardrobe. When I picked my items for “spring”, I picked some light sweaters and blouses and some short sleeve tops. Well, spring wasn’t much of a spring. We had more of a winter and then a summer this year so the light sweaters proved to be too warm for most of this cycle. There were a few of my items that I wore no more than once over the past three month period.

To start the clean-out process, I again emptied everything from my closet.

I went through my items and picked out anything I didn’t wear or only wore once and determined if it fit better in a different season or if I just didn’t like it as much as I thought I did. It either went back in the to-be-determined piles or went in the donate pile. Then I picked items out that I wanted to continue to wear for the next three months. I definitely have some staple items that I think will remain year round. Staple items help me understand what items to invest in in the future. For example, I have a black and white polka dot blouse that I have worn to work almost every week since January. I love it. It’s comfortable, stylish, and can be worn a multitude of ways. So, in the future when I am shopping for new tops for work, I know to base my choices on something similar to that blouse.

Once I had the items I wanted to keep, I went back through my stashed away items to determine what I’d like to include for the next three months. The mosquitoes in our yard this year require an outfit more like this every evening.

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Nevertheless, I ended up with 4 pairs of pants, 6 blazers, 4 skirts, 3 button down shirts, 3 pairs of jeans, 4 dresses, and 9 short sleeve shirts/blouses. Included in that count are three new tops I purchased for the summer which allowed me to add 9 new outfit possibilities to my summer wardrobe. I refuse to purchase a clothing item that only gives me one outfit option. These three tops can certainly be carried over into other seasons as well. One was a thrift store find and the other two were on deep sales, so I was happy with that decision.

I decided that at the end of this process in December, I’m going to take all my remaining items that I haven’t worn in the past year to a consignment store and any money I make will go towards upgrading or updating the items I have remaining – not buying new additional items, but replacing worn items. Rewarding ourselves after a challenging project is a good way to stick with it, even when it gets difficult.

My mister has about 267 t-shirts stuffed into his closet. Each quarter, when I update my side of the closet, I go through his shirts and get rid of a couple he hasn’t worn in ages – assuming they don’t have any sentimental value. So I went through his shirts and pulled out 3 to add to our donate pile. (And yes, I do ask him before I take them to Goodwill!) 

I also went through our shoes and sandals and found two pairs there to donate too. 

I am still antsy for a built-in closet organization system, but I think it’s best to wait until I complete the paring down process before designing something to fit our needs. I can add that to my reward as well!

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