Closet Cleanse

Life has been a little crazy lately and my closet... a prime example of the crazyness! 

Your closet is one of the first places you visit at the start of your day, so why start your day by stepping into chaos? 

Fall is here and although we're still having some warm days here and there, if I'm going to "go to town" on my closet I'm going to do it right!

Here is my method to my Partleigh Put-Together Madness!

First, digest the situation.  Understand that if you are going to really do this right you are going to need a few hours.

Before Picture: (Don't judge)

Unless you are fortunate enough to have a closet that is big enough to hold your Summer/Spring wardrobe AND your Fall/Winter, you are familiar with these seasonal transition times.

I usually divide this process into 2 parts since we don't have such dramatic changes in tempature  here in Wilmington.

1- Spring & Summer

2-  Fall & Winter

If you live in an area where there is a dramatic change from season to season you will probably want to divide this process into 4 parts

1- Spring & Summer

2- Summer & Fall

3-Fall & Winter

4-Winter & Spring

Currently I am transitioning from Spring & Summer into my winter and fall.

First, I start by pulling out all of my Spring & Summer clothes and I place them into two separate piles

1st Pile- Keep for next year

2nd Pile- Consignment

Then I pull out my AMAZING Space Bags Get them here!

These are life changing!!

In one Space Bag I  put all of my items that I am keeping for next year and label it for the following year (Spring & Summer 2013).

In the other bag I put all the items I'm bringing for consignment and label it for the following year as well.  

Why am I putting this away till next year? 

Consignment shops are predominately seasonal so it's a waste of time and money to take items that aren't in season because most likely they will not accept them.  When I do bring these items at the start of the season, any that they do not accept I then donate to Good Will! 

I take the clothing off the hangers and rather than folding each item, I lay them out flat on the bed and stack/layer them.  Once I've done that I slide them flat into the bag and then vacuum seal.  I purchase the larger bags for dresses, tunics, & pants and then the medium size for smaller garments.

I do the same thing with shoes, although I put these in the bottom of a large bin, in two separate garbage bags, then I put my two Space Bags in the bin as well, then LABEL, SEAL, & STORE!

Now that you have purged and sorted you are ready for the second faze!  This will be SUPER easy if you have already done this before because all you will need to do is go grab your bin from last year!  You should already have your items ready to drop off at the consignment shop and your other items ready to hang!

If this is your first time doing this it is a perfect time to start sort through the items you want to keep and save because you can bring this to the consignment shop as well!

When hanging your garments...

This is a personal preference I think.  I use to hang everything from lights to darks based on what I categorized as "work clothes" and "non work clothes".  This time around I categorized by Shirts, Pants, & Dresses and then categorized those indvidual items by color.  I did this because most of my outfits are no longer as clearly defined as far as "work" and "non work" are concerned.

Check out the finished product!  Aghhh... so much better!

A ladies closet can never be large enough, but I make due as best I can!  As for my husbands side of the closet... that will be a project for another day!

One last thing... 

I have been Pinning outfits for inspiration like crazy lately based on items that are similar to things I already have.   I had the idea of printing them out and putting them in a binder to keep in my closet as a reference for a morning I may be in a wardrobe rut.  I'll let you know if it helps or not!