In this before and after, my client needed help with her closet. Because she’s expecting another child, she has a mix of pregnancy and regular clothes both in one closet.
In the United States, it is common to have closets with a bar for hanging and multiple adjustable shelves. People generally use wire hangers that comes with their dry cleaning, and shirts and pants are folded and stacked. This method of organization is problematic because wire hangers ruins the shape of your clothing. And folded shirts gets messy every time you take one out from within the pile. The daily process of tugging and pulling makes a neatly organized closet difficult to maintain. Often in our busy lives they are left undone, and the pile becomes increasingly cluttered, adding stress to an already hectic morning time to get ready.
This tidying experience is a great example of when someone who has reached a breaking point and fed up with her storage problem. After spending 3.5 hours joy checking everything and discarding 8 bags of items, she gained some important insights. She learned that certain colors or styles she should never buy, and stores she shouldn’t shop at. She also realized reasons that will positively affect her future shopping decision making and habits based on the mistakes she made from past purchases.
After discarding, the storing process was a lot easier once she had the right amount of items intended for the size of her closet. We placed her regular clothes farther back, and the pregnancy clothes within reach. The clothes hung are in order from longest on the left, then rearranged within that to go from darker to lighter colors. This KonMari method of hanging can visually uplifts your spirit. From a maintenance stand point, it allows you to easily place something back in the same spot if you follow the length and color criteria.
All of her bags are nested inside of a large duffle bag and placed on the floor underneath. The folded clothes are separated by category. To infuse more joy, my client plans to get some boxes she likes to hold them (If you don’t have the budget, you can use shoe boxes or any rigid box, and cover it with wrapping paper that you like.) By separating folding items into subcategorized boxes, you create a more uniformed look, creating boundaries so you can easily find what you need, as well as less work for keeping them organized. (Note: The shelf that holds some denim and white shorts are folded and temporarily stacked one on top of the other. Those will be placed in a box so they’ll be “filed” instead of stacked.)
After photo of the closet seen above: I apologize for my slightly out of focus After photo. My client is keeping up with maintaining this closet so I’ll be taking a better one next time.
After photo of her post-pregancy clothes and shoes in the closet-above: We folded the clothes and stored them into an under the bed storage, sorted by category (work, pajamas, workout clothes) My client loves shoes, but is short on shoe storage. We placed her heels on a shelf (not shown) facing opposite direction to fit more pairs per shelf. Her sneakers and flats are paired up, placed them on their sides sole to sole facing opposite directions. Again, this allows more shoes to fit while keeping them visible and accessible.
In the end she had extra shelves in her closet which will be put to use after she brings back more regular clothes currently in storage. My client tells me she went from feeling frustrated every time she opens her closet door, to literally going inside to feel calm. And she looks forward to starting her day feeling positive as she gets ready for her busy day.
