Wardrobe Weeding aka Closet Clearout

Barb recently commented

"I love all your capsules, but how do you store all these clothes. I live in a very small house with tiny closet space. Do you purge and give away regularly, or do you have a great storage solution. Not judging, just curious."

I replied

"Hi Barb, good question - Well stuff shrinks, pills, get stained etc and so gets replaced. I'm quite hard on my clothing!
Some things don't get worn and get donated/given to friends or family.
So just because its in the blog sidebar doesn't mean its still in my house.
However, I do have 2 hanging rails in the built in wardrobe, a freestanding chest of drawers and other drawers and shelves in the wardrobe. I use the Konmari folding method for jeans, cardigans, knit tops, Pjs, camis, briefs etc, and use the narrow flocked hangers for hanging other items (except for jackets/coats which are on wooden hangers). I do store out of season/wrong size clothing in the loft on two hanging rails and in zipped bags. Coats mostly live downstairs in a cupboard. Scarves, bags, necklaces are in my study.
It probably is a bit too much and another purge is coming shortly :-)
Cheers Ruthie"

So the time has come for some Wardrobe Weeding.

Symptoms: clothing is crushed on hangers and jumbled in drawers. It can be hard to find the things you want and you are potentially missing some gems. Out of season stuff is still in the wardrobe though not getting worn. Some items are not being worn or are beyond repair.

Diagnosis: Wardrobe weeding required. 

Prescription: Proceed in an orderly way, without overloading yourself. I find the Konmari method of everything in a big pile makes it too hard, and its better for me to work in smaller chunks.

Think about the overall storage space you have and whether you are using it in the most sensible/practical way. For instance baskets and boxes can be helpful to keep shelves organised.

Choose one drawer, shelf or section of hanging space. Work through it taking out anything worn out, too small, wrong season, wrong dressiness, wrong colours. Remove anything which needs an alteration or repair.

Pack away the wrong season items somewhere accessible (I label with size and season). Refold, rehang and reorder what is left. Put dressy items together, gym clothes together, weekend clothes together and office clothing together. Hang by type and in colour order. 

If something is a 'maybe' item, try it on, and try to wear it soon. That often helps decide if something is a keeper or not.

Put donations in a bag and tie the top up to make it harder to change your mind, put other items in fabric recycling.
Put out of season in a bag and move to the storage area.

Note anything which seems to be a wardrobe 'hole', for example my plain navy top for work was relegated to the PJ drawer so maybe a new one would be good.

--
so far two large bags for charity shop donation waiting to leave the house and another bag of summer clothing up into the loft. The drawers now close without getting jammed!