My Closet

A few weeks ago, one of Josh's dear childhood friends posted on my Facebook wall asking for a blog post about my clothes. Lauren Cottings, you might the only human who is interested in reading this post, so you better enjoy it. ;)

It's like she KNEW my closet was a war zone and that I'd been putting off switching all our clothes from 'winter gear' to 'summer stuff.' Nothing like a little closet conviction to get me back on the spring cleaning bus (I took a couple weeks off after the Great Kitchen Cupboard Project of 2014).

Although my motivation for cleaning up my act might have been a little misguided ("You're really doing all of this just because Lauren suggested it?" - Josh), behold...my two-part blog series on clothes and closets.

Since I don't consider myself to be the most fashion forward of individuals (in college I spent every day for 3.5 years wearing the same sweatpants, boots, ISU hoodie, and headband...you all know the look I'm describing), I thought I'd start by explaining how we organize our miniature bedroom closet (seriously, the closets in our house are a tragedy).

Josh gets about 1/4 of the closet, and I get about 3/4. Before you judge me and think that's totally unfair, let me explain. Josh has two pairs of dress pants, four dress shirts, four flannel shirts, and five short-sleeve v-necks. Literally. that's. all. he. has. It would almost be silly for me NOT to fill the rest of the closet. ;)

I should also point out that he has reign over 3/5 dresser drawers for his extensive t-shirt collection (even AFTER I made him a t-shirt quilt with 36 of his shirts!).

So I push Josh's clothes to the right side, and my clothes to the left, separated by my scarf rack. ;)

I try to organize/purge all of the closets in our house two times per year. I've found the best time to do this is in the spring and the fall when the temperature drops and it's time for a wardrobe change. It just makes sense to do it while all of that rearranging is taking place anyway. It also makes it MUCH easier for me to acknowledge if there is something sitting at the bottom of the drawer or the back of the closet that neither of us has touched in six months...if I find myself just moving it from place to place and never using/wearing it...it's got to go.

I used to organize my clothes by style, but that got old. So I just finished organizing my shirts according to color and I've found in the past two weeks that it's a LOT easier to find things! If I'm looking for a blue shirt, sometimes sleeves and hangers can get hidden in the mix of everything, but if I know to look in the 'blue section' it's much easier to locate.

My dresses are not organized in any particular order. I don't have that many so they just get pushed to the least accessible section of the closet. Plus, we have storage sitting on the floor of our closet (still working on a better solution) and I want long dresses to be able to hang freely.

Our closet has two pretty awesome shelves and we use those for our joint crippling dependency on The Hoodie. Is there any other wardrobe staple as fundamentally useful and cozy as a sweatshirt? My answer: no. I'm usually not sentimental about anything that isn't scrapbookable but when it comes to my gray Manson Lifeguard hoodie from 10 years ago (HOW AM I THAT OLD) or our Clearwater Beach honeymoon sweatshirt...there's just no sense in getting rid of those before their time. They have many years of bonfires, yard clean-ups, and painting days before they're ready for the trash.

A few months ago I posted a plea on Instagram for helpful hints for storing cardigans and sweaters that shouldn't be hung on hangers. I had a TON of great ideas, and after trying a few out I settled on what I knew I should have done all along. Suck it up and pitch a few things to make room for folding them in a nice, neat pile on our shelves. So here they are:

To combat the small closet issues we have, I've implemented a few other organizing options that can happen in other places besides the floor of the closet. Hence this irritating shoe-storage option.

The bottom of our closet gives me anxiety (see first picture). Because we only have one five-drawer dresser, (I have an IKEA wish list a mile long to remedy all of these issues, but this one especially) I've used these plastic storage drawers since college. Our swimwear lives in the bottom drawers and my socks, bras, and undies reside in the top three drawers.

Josh's dress shoes and my heels go on another shoe rack inside the closet on the floor. And I don't love that either. But I love shoes under the bed or lined up against the wall even less...so this seemed like the best place for them to hide. To me, having shoes and jewelry and sweaters sitting OUT just adds to the clutter and makes already small bedrooms, look even smaller. So I try to stay as far away from those kinds of storage options as possible.

Our dresser holds Josh's socks, undies, white tanks and tees, and other novelty items...like his Christmas jammies. ;) This is where t-shirts, yoga pants, athletic shorts, and sweats all reside.

Would you believe me if I told you this dresser used to be brown with gold hardware? One of my earliest DIY projects that I'm proud of to this day. I'm a firm believer there is NOTHING a little high gloss black paint can't fix.

For the most part, Josh rotates between the following pieces: BLC hoodie, BLC work shirt, neon chemical shirt, Nike socks, compression shorts, jeans/work shorts, Nike hat, North Face, gray sweats, t-shirts.

Erryday.

I'm not kidding. He brings a whole new meaning to the term 'low-maintenance.' If those items are clean, it makes for one happy CEO.

Since we have separate bathrooms, and because Josh's bathroom is on the opposite side of the house from our bedroom, I figured out pretty early on that it was in everyone's best interest to keep these pieces of clothing stored IN Josh's bathroom. It's tiny, but one of these small storage cubes from Target does the trick. Everything gets folded and stacked in there, and he only has to trapse through the house for his socks. His work sweatshirts get hung on a hook and the whole concept isn't the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but it's what works for BLC headquarters.

For now our winter clothes and jackets hang in our spare room closet, and our boots get lined along the top shelf. I keep mittens, gloves, hats, and other winter necessities in a basket that I pull out and put by the back door in the winter. Clothes that are too big (yay!) are being stored in a tote also in this closet for the time being. I've debated hauling all of this stuff downstairs in the off-season but have decided against it due to the lovely Iowa weather we're subjected to (t-shirts in February, winter coats in April...seriously?)

Lauren, I hope you enjoyed my rambling and are now motivated to go clean your closet. And if some of my closet-organization-inspiration rubs off on the rest of you, well great. ;)

MmB