One of the items on my 52 Projects List is to declutter the clothes I own. I recently read several great articles on the topic including this one over at Simple Organized Living.
In our previous home, we minimized the clothing we owned because we had only one deep, standard closet in our master bedroom. I am so excited to have a full, walk in closet here. I did not hope to own more clothing simply because I have the space. Instead, I planned to enjoy the fact I could place a hanger on the rod without having to drive a wedge between hangers already in place. I think the picture shows what has happened during the first few months here.
Driving across the country for our move and limited mobility from back pain the last few months was not exactly beneficial to my weight. There are a lot of things in my closet that just do not fit. Most of them will fit though with very few pounds lost. I am finally able to do a workout where I actually sweat (not just recovery-level physical therapy). Most of us wear only about 20% of what is in our closet, but for me that is definitely the case in the short term. I want to go through the clothing I own, purge what I do not need and organize what I am keeping. I truly feel I am in a temporary situation of not wearing most of what I own though. (I am already down a few pounds since my workout intensity increased). So, I thought I would ask you what I should do.
Should I keep the things that don’t fit or do a complete purge, keeping only what I can wear?
I cleaned out my closest this past weekend…my rule was if I hadn’t worn it in a year then it was gone. That helped get about 15% out of my closet.
Tammy — I just had to laugh when I read this because almost everyone I know with a walk-in closet fills it to the brim and then wonders how they ended up with “so much stuff’!!
My best advice is PURGE!! Obviously, you don’t need to go crazy and get rid of things you’ll regret later — but be ruthless and get rid of anything you don’t need, want, love, or use {and yes, anything that doesn’t fit}.
Also, I like to think about how difficult it would be to replace… for example, a t-shirt or pair of ordinary jeans would be easy to replace, while a special sweater or evening gown might be more difficult and costly to replace.
Good luck with your project. Hope to see some “after” photos soon!!
Thanks Andrea! I am going to start with the one year rule as a guideline since I was wearing a lot more a few months ago. I like your suggestion too on the potential replacement cost since that would be SkipperClan’s #1 concern. If I can’t eliminate at least 1/3 with that, I will get more ruthless
Tammy,
Purge.
I have no doubt that you will be able to fit into your clothes again. However, will you want to wear all of your clothes once the weight comes off? I can fit everything in my closet and still don’t wear all my clothes. I usually go through my closet annually and donate anything that hasn’t been worn since the last purge.
I suggest donating your clothes to a worthy cause/organization in which others can get good use out of them.
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