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Fall cleaning — and closet organizing

By Meg | October 27, 2008

This past weekend my husband and I did some major cleaning around the house, mostly in the way of more decluttering and organizing. It’s amazing how fast those piles can accumulate in odd places. And drawers quickly turn to junk drawers if not regularly decluttered. One place that needed some major work was our closet. Fortunately, I’m something of a closet clearing pro.

My husband’s side was easy. Several months ago he hung all of his clothes backwards, then turned each piece the right way when he rehung it after it was worn and washed. There was a small section of clothes that were still facing the other way since they hadn’t been worn, so we went through them to find out why. One shirt we left “in circulation”, one shirt was put into a box for sentimental items, and the rest are in a bag in the car waiting to go to Goodwill.

My side was a bit more work. Unfortunately, I had gained some weight over the last few months due to a then undiagnosed health condition. I’m now taking care of that and am already losing weight (slower that I put it on, of course), but a good bit of my wardrobe doesn’t fit right yet. There’s no use having clothes that don’t fit taking up room in my closet, though. So, all those clothes went into another bag which I’m storing elsewhere along with other clothes that I may or may not keep.

I’m normally pretty quick to get rid of things, but I’m hesitant to permanently part with clothes right now. Since I am indeed losing weight, I want to see how I feel about certain clothes when they (hopefully) fit better. Plus, some of those pieces may come in handy for some of the video work that I’m doing over at The Wardrobe Channel. And I also have several friends who have been known to “shop” my closet.

One thing that really felt good was to go through my winter accessories and reorganize them — even though it’s still not cold enough to wear most of them during the day. There were things in there I forgot I had, even though most of it has been stored in my closet or dresser like most of my other clothes, just in drawers or areas that I don’t really go through. I can’t wait till I can wear my winter stuff since I love things like gloves, scarves, winter hats, sweaters, jackets, sweater vests, boots, etc., but it’s just too hot here for most of the year — and even much of winter. And of course, nearly half of my wardrobe — if not more — consists of “winter” clothing.

Even though the temperatures haven’t changed much, it’s been nice even just to put away my summer hats and extra flip flops. Sure, it’s still warm enough to wear them and it’s not like I’ve worn much of either anyhow. And I still have no plans to put away my floral summer skirts. But sometimes, little gestures like that help to break up the year. After all, in a month or so I’m sure the neighbors will have their giant snow globes on display in their yards, even if the temperatures some days are in the 80s.

Have any of you reorganized your wardrobe for the fall — or do you keep everything more or less in the same place year round? How do you feel about changing your wardrobe as the seasons change?

Tags: Fashion, Home & Garden, Organization & Decluttering, Outerwear, Weather

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