Tidying Up Tuesday: My Clothes

Today was the first day of tidying, so I started with my clothes. I figured it'd be easier than starting with my kids' stuff, because no one else needs to give input on my clothes. I'd be flying solo.

I have clothes in three places: a dresser in my bedroom, a plastic three-drawer cart in my closet, and my daughter's closet. Amelia's closet is the biggest in the house by far, and yet she's the smallest and the only one who doesn't share a room with anyone else. So my husband's clothes hang in our closet, and mine go in Amelia's room.

I did a few things to prepare for tackling my clothes. Yesterday I made sure I washed everything of mine that was in the hamper, so I wouldn't miss anything today. I also made sure the clothes I wore yesterday were things I knew I'd be keeping, so I wouldn't have to retrieve them from the hamper to sort them. Same with the clothes I wore to exercise this morning. I was not into the idea of putting dirty clothes on my bed.

Here's my pile:

Remy is not amused

It might not look too big in the photo, but I think that's because my dresses and skirts were on top and they covered a lot of the smaller items. And yes, those are two wedding dresses piled up on the side. It's a long story.*

*no it isn't; I was engaged before Ryan and I started dating, and I broke things off before the wedding but after buying a dress. And I wasn't going to wear a tainted dress to marry Ryan.

I went through the pile and tried to spark joy with my clothing. Some of it clearly did, like a shirt with owls on it that my sister gave me ten years ago, and a t-shirt that says Reading is For Awesome People. Other items were meh, but I had to keep them for practical reasons (like the undershirts I use to layer). Some thing actively sparked hate, like the nylons I haven't worn in years because they suck. Those went in the trash. I also found a ton of maternity/nursing stuff in the plastic drawers that I finally felt like I could get rid of.

After I went through everything, I had to put it all back. Good news! I no longer need to put anything in the plastic drawers! My hanging things are still in Amelia's closet. Maybe I can convince Ryan to sort through his clothes, and then rearrange our closet so both of our stuff can fit in it. A girl can dream. The hardest work was fitting things in my dresser. I decided to reconceptualize where things in the drawers went, to fit everything in. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Completing this project (except for taking the clothes to donate) took about two hours.

Pants drawer: jeans and other ankle-length pants; leggings and exercise pants; shorts. THEY ALL FIT WHEN YOU FOLD THEM KONMARI-STYLE

Pajama drawer: Pajama tops; pajama bottoms; sports bras and swimsuit

Because I don't buy a lot of clothes, and because I'd gone through my clothes two years ago, I anticipated that I wouldn't get rid of very many things. I was wrong.

That's a laundry basket overflowing with clothing I no longer wanted.

Our local consignment shop only lets you give 25 items a week, so I picked out the 25 best ones and took them in to the store. They also took the hangers I no longer needed. The rest of the clothes I gave to Goodwill. I did throw some things away, like the nylons and some undershirts that were pretty ratty. All in all I got rid of around 60 items of clothing. Plus, I am finally going to deal with the extra wedding dress I've been carting around for 11 years. On that note, do you need a wedding dress?

Next week: Amelia's clothes