When I first moved to NY, my roommate and I would get out our granny cart and haul our laundry down to the laundromat at the end of the block. We would take a walk while the clothes were in the machines and chat while we folded on adjacent counters.
Laundry was easy then, but somehow everything got out of hand over the years. Both my husband and I started hating laundry. We would buy more clothes instead of washing the ones we had. We ended up needing to buy a new dresser. Eventually we started driving our laundry to the huge 24 hour laundromat because by the time we finally ran out of things to wear, we couldn’t carry it all on foot even if we wanted to. If only we had heard Laura (the OrgJunkie)’s advice of setting boundaries and limits a few years ago!
Recently, a friend handed down a portable washing machine to us. Since then I started washing our laundry at home on the same day each week and really noticing how many items go unworn. It is compounded by the fact that I had a few items of maternity clothes still lingering around, new clothes that I bought for ease of nursing the baby and then all my old clothes from before I got pregnant.
I didn’t buy very many new nursing tops (and I wear all of them) so I set them aside and started on the old summer clothes. First I went through and took out everything that was always a “second” (only worn after all the favorites were dirty). Those were usually the clothes that I loved on the model but were never quite the same on me. That filled up one box to give away. Then I tried everything on in front of the mirror with a fun new twist…one of the keeper tests was “how easy is it to get a boob out?”
I decided to keep my new nursing tops out of my closet for one week and see if I actually wear the old tops as a final test. So far, I’ve failed and went to the nursing top stash. I know you can theoretically turn any shirt into a nursing top with one of those tanks underneath, but who wants to wear two shirts in this humidity? I might just be giving everything away…
Here’s everything on the rack after I picked out the “seconds”:
After trying them all on, I had another 14 empty hangers. We’ll have to see at the end of the week how many of them are unworn and destined to end up hanging in someone else’s closet.
Don’t forget to check out OrgJunkie’s 52 Weeks of Organizing to see how everyone else is coming along.
Oh gosh, they all look so nice hanging there….but I know, I have too many clothes too! I have made it here in NC with 3 pairs of capris and 6 tops for 3 weeks!
Isn’t it funny how that always works on vacation? I once read a tip for purging clothes was to pack a suitcase as if you were going away for one month to a place with both weather extremes and then keep only what you packed. Not sure where that’s from though.
Looks like the perfect little stash: not too much, not too little! Good job at not letting emotional attachments impede your progress!
Thanks, I’ve really come a long way with the emotional attachments to things. Too bad that rack is only my pre-preg summer clothes. There are lots more you don’t see. I’ll have to tackle the fall/winter items in a month or two!
Wow! That’s impressive. I’m bad with keeping clothes…even ones I don’t particularly like. I’m working on my daughter’s closet right now, but my closet is next…
I seem to have a ton of clothes, too, even after going through them before our recent move. My problem is that now I’m left with a lot of clothes that I really like and that all fit at some point between my non-pregnant and pregnant cycles. I seem to span a large range of sizes not even including my maternity clothes. I did finally get rid of my single digit sizes. I don’t see myself fitting back into those before their are horribly out of style