Reorganizing my closet with The Home Edit

It happens whenever you try to make a change. You get into a groove, then you fall off the wagon. Then you try again. Eventually those grooves get longer, and you start seeing some progress (or maybe you think you’re not, but trust me, you are!)

Lately, I’ve been in a rut. Then I turned on Netflix, and there is a new tidying show!

The Home Edit breathes new life into tidying

The show focuses on a business run by two women who organize for everyday people as well as celebrities. They’re fun to watch, and the ideas they come up with to organize for each of their clients is inspiring.

Plus, they’re funny!

Reorganizing my closet a new way

After watching their team tackle Reese Witherspoon’s closet, then fashion designer Rachel Zoe, I was inspired to revisit my own closet. When the team walked into Rachel Zoe’s closet, which was packed with more clothes than the closet could even handle, the team tried to get Rachel to “edit” (i.e. toss things she didn’t love). But Rachel is the type of person who cannot edit. According to her, she loves everything.

However, she was amenable to “archiving” (i.e. moving things to another location).

The Home Edit vs Marie Kondo

After watching THE attack Rachel’s closet by moving things out, then reorganizing her stuff to make the closet more breathable, I realized they obviously have a different philosophy then Marie Kondo. I love a lot of the ways Marie organizes, but sometimes I find her philosophy too restrictive.

Like Rachel, I love clothes. But, I don’t have a massive amount of space. So I find that I’m always getting down on myself for having too many clothes. Then I try to force myself to get rid of things. Which I can do, but I’m loving this idea of “archiving” more.

I wish I could be more minimal in this department, but clearly it’s not going to happen. I love this idea of accepting this fact, and figuring out ways to organize around it.

Organize to your individual tastes

Watching THE organize each person’s closet is amazing, mostly because they approach each person’s closet uniquely. One woman’s closet, a single mom, had a tiny closet exploding with clothes. The team designed her closet from top to bottom. They put baskets on top shelves, hung clothes in distinct categories for work, baking, and then dating (because she wanted to get back into dating). Under those clothes, they had laundry bins, and stacked drawers for bins, as well as bins attached to the doors for accessories, electronics, and other items.

For a doctor’s closet, they noticed she had an extraordinary amount of blue clothes. So they made a dedicated section of her closet for blue. She’s a doctor so they also made a section for her work clothes, scrubs, and stethoscopes.

Therefore, I’ve been doing the same with myself.

Switching out clothes for the season

I decided that the best way to make my closet more breathable is to “archive” seasonal clothes. Then, with everything else I own, the next steps are:

Categorize: Sweaters, t-shirts, cardigans, skirts, pants, jeans, bags, coats.
Contain: Figure out how big of a space each category needs and how to best fit it into the closet

Marie Kondo suggests creating a visual style of long and heavy items starting on the left and moving up to the right. Which is what I’ve done for a long time. However, I have a LOT of black, dark clothes. To me, having them all on the left makes my closet seem heavy.

So, I switched this a little. I put my dark, heavy coats on the right.

Now, my closet is odd because the opening isn’t as wide as the closet is. Meaning, there’s a pocket of space on each side you can’t really see. The pocket on the right is darker than the one on the left, so putting my dark coats here works well, since it matches. Meanwhile, the pocket on the left that gets more light I now use to display my bags.

Sock drawer, everything folded the Marie Kondo way

What did I switch around?

In my dresser, I have 5 drawers: Underwear, t-shirts, jeans, sweaters, pajamas. In the closet, I have a hanging organizer with 3 shelves: scarves, skirts, slacks. I also have another organizer with 3 shelves: exercise clothes (tops, pants).

Now, here’s what I rearranged:

Hanging 3-shelf organizer now holds all my jeans (instead of skirts, scarves, and slacks).
3-shelf organizer now shows off all my bags and purses (instead of my exercise clothes)
I added a second closet rod so I could hang my skirts and slacks.
I moved my scarves, accessories, and exercise clothes into my dresser.

Here’s what i love

The left side of the closet, all my jeans, a few light tops, and then the skirts and slacks hanging. I love how light it looks and feels. It’s still a work in progress because I have space on the top shelf I need to figure out what to do with. I also need to move the air conditioner out of the closet..I think…but it’s heavy -

Anyway, I’m excited and energized watching this new show so I wanted to share what I’ve gleaned and how I’ve been applying it so far. Both excitement and energy has been in short supply lately, so I’ll take it anywhere I can.

Hope you’re all well! Happy tidying xoxo

Danielle KlenakSeptember 13, 2020closet, clothing, seasonal, fall wardrobeComment