Easy Closet Organization
Hello it's me again. I have a quick post for you guys on something
that I was struggling with last year: Closet Organization. This mostly focuses
on the hall and bathroom closets. I also have some tips on under the sink
organization. These areas have been a struggle for me the last few years and I now
have a good system in place.
Let me take you back to early
2018. We had decided that in the Spring that we were going to look at houses to
see about moving. We had clearly outgrown our old house and no matter how much
purging or organizing I did help. Fast forward to beginning of March and we
randomly found our forever home way earlier than anticipated.
During this time, I started
learning about minimalism. This was an amazing and awesome concept to someone
who hates stuff just laying around. Stuff gives me anxiety, still does to this
day. As I started packing, I started taking some of the minimalism ideas and
using them before we got to our new house. Once we were settled in our new house,
I continue the minimalism concept, but my closets were still giving me
problems. Read on to see what I did!
Step One:
The first thing I did for each
closet was pull everything out and go throw it all. I threw away, donated, or
re-purposed things during this process. Old towels became car washing towels or
we donated them to the animal shelter. Sheets that my kids had outgrown I
donated. Beauty products that were expired got thrown out. Expired medication
was thrown away at Walgreen's for them to dispose of properly.
Step Two:
After the initial purging I
then grouped like things together. All the towels, wash clothes, and hand
towels in one pile. Medicine in another. Make-up in another. You get the idea,
right? After that I did another purge. Did I really need ten hand towels? The
answer for me is no, so I made sure each bathroom had two (6 total for me) and
got rid of the rest. Same thing with towels. We have two everyone in our house
plus two for guest. It may still seem like a lot but compared to what I had
it's not.
Make-up I really took a hard
look at what I had. I have never worn a lot of it so why was I keeping it all?
The answer for me was because I thought I should use it because other people
were. So, I opted to keep the stuff that I used a lot and a few other things
that I would use for special occasions. Everything else went away. Beauty
products were the same thing so in 2019 I gave myself a year to use them or I
got rid of them. I got rid of a lot of stuff in 2020 after realizing, I'm just never
going to be one of those women who uses a lot of soaps, lotions, etc. I like
simple things, so I stick with that.
I went through that same
process for every pile I had. If I was on the fence about something, I gave
myself a time frame to use it or it went away. I set a reminder in my calendar
with an alarm to remind me because I knew I'd forget.
Step Three:
Now time for the fun part or at
least fun for me! Organize it all! These are all before pictures. Such a mess
and some of the bins/storage solutions I had left from my old house were not
working in the new house.
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| Hall Closet Before |
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| Master Bathroom Closet Before |
Now
that you've seen the before pictures. I tried to re-purpose as much as I could
or use stuff that I already had around the house. In my old house since we only
had one hall closet the plastic shoe boxes worked great, but for the new house
they didn't work for both closets, so I kept them in mine because we have
narrow shelves. Once cleaned out and reorganized they have been working great.
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| Hall Closet After |
In my hall closet I used the cream-colored bins I was using. I just cleaned it out. It holds medicine for adults and kids. After purging stuff that was old or we didn't use anymore that has helped keep everything contained to bins. The purple rectangle and square bins are from IKEA. They are the SKUBB Box, set of 6. They now come in white or black, but we had originally bought they seven years ago for our daughters' nursery. She still uses some of them, but we had a whole bunch laying around that were not being used. The cream-colored bins are from the dollar store. They are nice and sturdy. The tan bins at the top hold our extra sheets and blankets. They are from IKEA too. There similar to the DRONA boxes now, but not as sturdy. They are from at least seven years ago too. I will add that I took photos while doing laundry, so I have more towels in there now.
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| Master Closet After |
The white bins are the same one from IKEA that I talked about before, just the new colors. They change colors almost every year or ever few years on those. The blue back in the back corner is an old Thirty-One bag I had from when I use to sell Jamberry Nails. I have my nail stuff in there now.
I also found putting together all my bathroom travel bags to be helpful and more organized. They were always thrown in random places but having them in this spot makes more sense.
Step Four:
Now comes the best step: Enjoy! I did this at the beginning of January, and I was worried that it would become a big mess again. So far it has not. I'm very conscious about putting things back in the right place and surprisingly my husband is too. My kids for the most part leave it alone, but if they do mess things up it now doesn't take long for me to put it back into the right area. They have even become area of what bin things go back into, which has been a nice surprise.
Bonus:
I've got a bonus for you because I also reorganized under my bathroom counters during this time. I will say that it wasn't a huge mess, but just putting some bins inside has helped keep it looking nicer. It's also been easier for my daughter to find things like hair clips. I don't have any before pictures from the kid's bathroom, but not much has changed other then re-purposing bins and throwing stuff away.
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| Master Bathroom Before |
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| Master Bathroom After |
As you can see, just some minor changes have made a big difference in one area of my life that was causing me so much stress and annoyance.
Resources:
If you are looking for some resources, the place that gave me the greatest start was actual a book about minimalism.
It's called LESS: Minimalism, For Real by Rose Lounsbury. She is local to me in Dayton, Ohio and came to speak at my MOPS group a few years ago. She really changed how I see life and helped make it easy to do. She has great practical, easy to implement ideas in her book.
The other biggest help has been Pinterest! Just spending the time searching for ideas with the word minimalism added on. Once I did that I started finding bloggers or websites that I liked.
Becoming Minimalist is another good resource I like. I also like Be More with Less. I get e-mails and following both on Facebook. I really enjoy the content delivered and the vast number of topics they cover.
Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you follow a minimalist approach to any parts of life?
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