Tackle Your Clothes Closet - Now Really Is The Time!
Summer is near! That means now is the perfect time to evaluate your clothes closet. But not to remove out-of-season winter clothes. That’s a whole other topic. Now is the time to take those spring and summer clothes that are just using space in your closet to charity.
This is the time people in need (or people not in need who just like to shop at thrift stores) are looking for cool-wear clothing. So if you’re thinking of donating that wool coat you might want to hold off until winter. Thrift stores and donation drop-off points don’t always have room to store or display everything that’s donated to them. So they won’t be displaying a lot of your winter wear during the hot weather season. Hang onto your winter clothes donations until winter. That way they have a chance of going to someone that needs them and not ending up in the local landfill due to a lack of space in the warehouse or storefront.
Just last weekend I hauled a pile of clothes off to the local Goodwill. A bit of irony though is that I didn’t make more room for my wardrobe in my bedroom closet. That was because these were mostly hanging in my home office closet. The closet rod in my bedroom closet is full of stuff I wear now. That’s my primary wardrobe space. I had put these mostly short-sleeved blazers that I don’t wear anymore due to a change in profession in my office closet. But the good news is I’ll have more room in there for my files and office-related items now.
When evaluating your clothes closet, consider donating…
1) …clothes not your style or not in-style anymore. They may work for someone else.
2) …only clothing that is in good shape. That means no rips, stains or missing buttons. Nobody wants to repair or wear these things any more than you do.
3) …clothes that were gifts or hand-me-downs that don’t make you feel good. It’s tough sometimes to get rid of a clothing item that’s tastefully expensive or in perfectly good shape, especially if someone gave it to you. But there are a lot of better reasons to discard it: 1) it doesn’t look great (not just good) on you; 2) it brings up bad memories or just old stagnant memories (life is about moving forward); 3) it’s taking up space in your clothes closet for items you have the enjoyment of purchasing for yourself. Don’t feel guilty, especially if you got some usage from it already. Move onward. Donate it. Someone else may love it!
4) …clothes in style or not that you plain just don’t wear anymore. Not sure which ones those are? Try turning your clothes hangers for all of your clothing items backward in the closet. The Productivity Cafe tells you more in-depth how this plan for simplifying your wardrobe works. I did a similar take on this too recently. But instead of turning the existing hanger backward, I decided to eventually get rid of ALL of the cheap, thin wire hangers in our closets (you know…the ones that pop off the rod and bend out of shape if you pull on them too hard).
As a clothing item came out of the dryer, I placed it on a plastic hanger (and discarded the wire hanger). After a while, I was able to see what items left in my closet and my husband’s closet were rarely if ever worn anymore. Obviously those items were still hanging on the wire hangers. So not much chance of anyone missing them in the future if they were to suddenly disappear! (My spouse is a packrat; sometimes things just have to disappear unless I want to wait for them to disintegrate and even then a packrat wants to hang onto pieces and parts–just in case they can use them later.)
If you’re interested in some other types of clothes hangers appropriate for your clothing, indeed there is more than just ordinary shaped and size wire and plastic hangers. A lot more! And sometimes the right hanger helps maintain your clothing longer (That’s money in your pocket, or at least not out of your pocket early for replacement items).
Oh… if you find yourself wanting to do away with some plastic hangers (maybe wood hangers are your new love), you might want to hang a few on your interior doors. Apparently plastic hangers can prevent door slamming—at least according to this tip someone wrote at ParentHacks.