Last week, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. This is one of the first times I've actually read what I would consider a "trendy" book while it's still trendy, by the way. I usually don't get to them until a few years later...
I decided to give some of the KonMari organizing principles a try. You organize by category, and one of the key things is to gather everything from that category in one spot. The first area to tackle is clothing. So I gathered all of my clothing to my bed. (I actually only had a few coats downstairs, and everything else was already in the bedroom). Here's before:
And here's after:
The pile of t-shirts on the bench (on the right) is something I'm saving for when I go through mementos (the last category you're supposed to tackle), because I don't wear any of them any more, but they do have sentimental value. I'll probably end up getting rid of most of them later on, but not right now.
I got rid of a big pile of stuff that's still usable (on the left below), and a smaller pile of old bras and unmentionables that will be trashed (on the right).
I've already been working on cutting down my wardrobe for awhile, keeping only those things that are truly my style, and creating my version of a capsule wardrobe. So this pile would have been bigger a few months ago too.
The other big theme I noticed for the KonMari method of organizing clothing is folding. Fold everything! I like having some things hanging, but I was able to clear out two drawers of our dresser for Jesse to use, and I put most of my stuff in my three drawer bin in the closet.
Drawer #1: Socks and underwear. I kind of like how the socks look all folded together (aside from mine being not-so-white any more), but that seems like more of a hassle than the stack I had them in before, so I don't know if I'll keep them that way.
Drawer #2: Tank tops, workout shirts, and bras. I will say that this folding method saves a lot of space over what I was using before.
Drawer #3: Yoga pants, my only pair of nice pajamas, lingerie, and swimsuit. My goal before winter is to find another nice pair of pjs. You know, a grown-up pair.
And finally, while going through my dresses (and getting rid of about half of them), I came across this little number. It doesn't fit right now, but I really liked how it looked when it did fit, so I brought it out for a bit of extra motivation to keep my eating and exercising habits in check.
So. Now that you've seen all the pictures, here's what I think. I really like the idea of getting everything in one spot to go through it, because while my clothes were already mostly there, there are other categories that I know I'll be gathering from all over, and I'm kind of curious to see how it works out.
The average KonMari organization takes 6 months according to the book. No idea how long it will take here, but I'm going to keep going with it for awhile. The idea is that once you go through everything once, and purge a lot, you don't have to do it again ever, because seeing things so neat and tidy makes you want to keep it that way. I'm game to try it!
Jesse was even inspired by my cleaning up, or maybe by my folding all of his workout shirts to see them fit in a drawer, to go through some of his clothes too. (He went through them and got rid of about half of them, but then hung them back up).
Next up, little boys clothes and little girls clothes! Stay tuned...
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