I sure hope that my entry gets counted - for some reason I thought we were supposed to post our results on December 1, and today I realized it was supposed to get posted today, but I was at work and didn’t get home until after 1AM EST . . . so I’m hoping that this goes through by the deadline of 11:59PM PST!

This post is very picture heavy, so read on at your own peril !

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Alright, time to update on my latest organizing project!

I didn’t want to post my progress last week because I didn’t feel like I had my head wrapped around things enough to document how I’m doing. Now I’m feeling a bit more focused, so I feel like I can share some thoughts with the world . . .

At the moment I’m about 1/2 way done, maybe a little more. A LOT of the sorting work is done, and I have a nice hefty Goodwill pile growing in the living room (which I will transfer to my car tomorrow). I also have tossed a LOT of trash (empty boxes and soooo much paper clutter). Soon it will be time to start figuring out how it will all fit back in an organized and uncluttered manner!

I’ve moved my deadline from the end of the month to . . . Wednesday, LOL! At the moment I would really like to get things finished before my parents and brother come to share Thanksgiving with me, but I do have a backup plan. If I can’t get it all finished, I will at least have the room finished and the outside storage finished. The closet will be completely sorted, and my contingency plan is to put it all back into the closet and then pull it back out and reorganize it once they leave. Since all the sorting is done, this won’t be sooo awful, but I am really going to try and avoid this. If I DO have to do this, then I will use the post-Thankgiving time to finish things up.

I am so thrilled to be getting this done. I thought that I had purged a lot when I moved, but I am discovering that there is so much more that can go! Off to take care of some more work!

Last year I participated in Laura’s 30 Day Organizational Challenge and got my closet whipped into shape. I wasn’t one of the competition winners, but the amount of time and stress I’ve saved by having things organized has made me FEEL like a winner (OK, that was a little cheesy). Seriously, the challenge was in November, but that closet stayed in that EXACT condition until I moved in July, and when I moved I carried over the organization to my new apartment. And it’s still organized the same way (which is the REAL shocker). So this year, my project is even greater than last year’s - it’s a massive undertaking!

For this year’s 30 Day Organizational Challenge, I’m tackling my storage situation. A little background: I moved to a new apartment in July. For the first time I am living in an apartment all by myself, but it is a two bedroom apartment. I feel like I’ve got my own little house - this place TRULY feels like it’s mine! When I moved in, I got the kitchen all set up, the living room is all nice and homey, and my bedroom has everything just where I want it. The only problem? All that stuff that didn’t really have a place to go, so it got tossed into the spare bedroom/office (with a little overflow into the outside storage closet). And I just kind of . . . left it all there. 5 months ago. And about a month ago I went to my parents’ house and brought back all my Christmas decorations (Christmas at my place!!!) . . . and I just stuck them in the living room because there was no other place to put them.

So for my challenge, I am getting my storage situation all figured out! I’ve got a massive closet in the spare bedroom as well as a great storage closet outside by my little patio area. I’ve also got my desk which, once I get my computer actually set up, will provide great storage. And since I’ve already sorted through the rest of the apartment as I was putting things away from moving in, all the stuff in my apartment that could be purged is in that room - so not only am I anticipating using my storage space, but I’m also sensing a trip to Goodwill.

Here are a few before pics - I have more, but you’ll just have to wait until November 30 to see the whole process!

Patio Closet Before

Guest Room Closet Before

Guest Room Before

It’s time to get organizing!

Before I get started, let me say that this was a massive undertaking, haha! What started out as a “I’ll get rid of some t-shirts and put things into plastic bins” turned into me getting rid of 2/3 of my wardrobe and a closet that is basically half empty now, LOL! It also led to me going through all my desk drawers, dresser drawers, and my smaller storage cabinet. I have gone through my entire room, and now I feel like I have minimal work to be done to get the entire room as organized as that dang closet! So, let the process begin!

After taking scary before pictures, I took the overflowing crate of textbooks and the foot and a half stack of binders and handouts and sorted through them. I’m not in school anymore, so I was able to get rid of all but one or two textbooks and I condensed all the papers and stuff into one binder - not bad, LOL! Next, I moved my bookcase (and all the stacks of books) out of the closet and into my room next to my other bookcase. As you can see, I know what my next project is going to be - the book situation is a problem, LOL!

Since I moved my bookcase out, I then had to do something with those boxes that were previously in the bookcase’s new home. The ones that are related to my business I moved into storage - it’s so nice not to have those sitting there everyday staring at me. Instead I get all my wonderful books. Yay!

The two boxes on the bottom, however, had to go into the closet where the bookcase was. One of them is work-related stuff to which I need regular access, and the other is a box of all my techno-stuff . . . the manuals, the software CDs, the spare cables, etc. This was a nightmare, and while it was a contained nightmare in its fun little box I knew that there was some serious organizing to be had:

More on this in a bit - first I needed to assess the closet situation as a whole.

When I moved the books out of the closet they had cobwebs all over them, so I knew that I needed to pull EVERYTHING out of the closet and give the closet itself some cleaning. There wasn’t enough room in my bedroom to pull everything out, so I had to put it all in the living room:

What a nightmare! Well, at least it made sorting through things easier - it was all pulled out, so I could actually see what I owned!

I sorted through my shoes and was able to get it down to one pair per cubbyhole, and I’m gonna go with the replacement theory on this one - from now on, if I want a pair of shoes, I have to get rid of a pair of shoes!

Then I went through my clothes. I didn’t do a huge overhaul at this time, I just pulled out things that I knew I would never wear - some knit tops, a few things that I know will never look good on me, regardless of weightloss, and several sorority t-shirts that I know I won’t wear anymore. I also sorted through all my sweaters, and quickly assessed that I would need a better system for keeping them organized. This rack seemed like a great organizing solution!

I sorted through my purses and was able to get rid of half! I took the remaining purses and put them in the crate that used to have all the textbooks in it. Not the most attractive storage container, but it was the right size, and I already owned it, LOL! No sense in spending money if I don’t need to! And it’s so nice to have them in a container since they are higher up - I don’t have to pull down 80 bazillion things to find what I’m looking for, I just take down the crate, pick out the purse I want, and put the crate back into its nice little home!

NOW I was able to get to that large box of techno-stuff! I carefully sorted things in to piles - cables, software, manuals, etc. I was amazed at how much had accumulated! I was able to get rid of over half of the cords (because honestly, we have cable internet, and we use a wireless router - I didn’t need all the telephone and ethernet cables that seem to come with every new computer product), some of the old software that I don’t use anymore, and some old telephones (we have Vonage now). There were also a ton of backup disks that are obsolete now that I have an external hard drive that does regular backups. Imagine my surprise when not only was I able to condense the tech stuff, but I was able to fit it all into a box that was HALF the size of the previous box!!!

Talk about gaining some space! I knew I’d have more room, but if you had told me that I would be able to put it all into that small box, I would have just laughed at you! In this case, yay for being wrong!

Now that the majority of the STUFF was organized it was time to get down and dirty with the clothes. About once a year I sort through my clothes and get rid of things, but it usually amounts to a few shirts, a pair of jeans, and a sweater or two. This time, as I pulled everything out and looked at each individual piece, I thought hard about when was the last time I wore it. How it looks when it’s on my body. If the color is a good color for me. I used the principles that I’ve learned from a recent discovery, MissusSmartyPants, LOL!

MissusSmartyPants is a clothing consultant - you send her a picture of yourself and she helps you figure out what clothes will fit you the best. I am amazed at how right she is. She has detailed directions for what are the essential wardrobe basics and on how to do a true, thorough closet purge. By using her methods I was able to get rid of almost 2/3 of the clothes in my closet . . . and still feel like I’m able to dress well every day! I came to realize that I only wear 1/3 to 1/2 of my clothes on a regular basis anyways . . . the rest are just sitting there reminding me of one particular occasion, or of a thinner weight. Her recommendations have also helped me to figure out what styles and cuts of clothing work the best for me, so I know that in the future when I go shopping I will be able to buy clothes that will fit me well, look great on me, and get worn on a regular basis! I let a couple of my friends sort through my clothes and take what they wanted, and the rest I am giving to our housekeeper (see #6). The rest of my giveaway things went in 2 carloads to Goodwill.

Yay for not only getting rid of all that unnecessary clothing, but having things organized in a way that I know I will use them! I also read on her website a tip from another client - I’ve taken all my clothes for this time of the year and grouped them together. Then I turned all the hangers around so that the hook is going the opposite direction on the rack. Then, as I wear things I will put the hook back the way it’s supposed to be. At the end of the season I’ll be able to see what I DIDN’T wear because the hook will still be backwards. If I know what I haven’t worn, then I know what I should consider getting rid of. Sounds brilliant to me!

With all the clothes weeded through, all the junk sorted through and organized (or in a different home) I was able to see the greatest asset of all - the closet itself. I have a huge closet. I always knew this, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I got the lightbulb changed so that I can see EVERYTHING (you’ll note the light is out in my before picture). I looked around and thought about my daily process to figure out what I wanted to change to make my life easier.

Now that I’ve been trying to exercise regularly, I realized it would be nice to have my workout clothes in my dresser that is in my room. It’s near my bed, and it would be so much easier to just pull something out of there. In order to do that though, I’d have to clear a drawer. As I looked, I realized that I had more than half a drawer dedicated to bathing suits! When I was living in Florida, that would have made sense, but here in North Carolina (in November, nonetheless) that seems like a waste of space. Since my closet was all cleared out, I was able to see that there was space higher up on the shelf where I could put the bathing suits. I bought a few small containers to use on that space - they’re small and lightweight, so they’re easy to pull down.

I got one for the bathing suits, one for my scarves and gloves, etc. Sooo much better than the “where is such and such . . .” organizational method I had going on before! And while the containers aren’t exactly the most attractive bins, they’re the right size, and I’m the only one going to be seeing them, so I don’t mind their color! Go Deacs!

And so, for the grand finale, the after pictures of my closet:

As you can see, the clothing is clearly organized according to type and color, as well as the occasion in which I would wear it. It is MUCH easier to see what I have, and since the floor is clear, I can walk in there and actually look at things. I’m actually using the double hanging rack now, so I can use the other hanging racks for things like the storage of sweaters. Ideally I would like to have a double clothes rack with the bottom rack being shorter so that I can hang the longer dresses and things with the other clothes, but since I’m in an apartment I can’t change the racks around This will work until I move next summer, and hopefully I’ll move into a place that will let me change the racks around to the way I like them.

I’ve used the shelf between the racks for my games since I don’t use them too much and I don’t need regular access. On the left side of the closet I’m only using half of the length of the closet for clothes, so on the other half of the shelf I have put those 2 boxes (work stuff and techno-stuff) and my spare pillows (boo for lack of linen closet), and on the floor I have put all my luggage. It’s all waaaaay more accessible than it was. You can see the spare sheets sitting next to the blue crate with my purses, and on the very top are my scarves, boots, etc. - things I don’t need to get to that often. I think using that high up space was key for me.

As far as the rest of the closet goes, it’s fairly empty except for my shoes. I was excited that I can put my exercise ball in there and it’s not in the way! The rest of the shelves are empty. When I am at my parents’ home for Christmas I plan to get all of the things out of my closet there and bring them back here, and those shelves will be used for storage. It will be much more helpful to my mom, because then she can use that closet at home instead of my things taking up all the good space when I am rarely there anymore anyways.

So the closet is clean, ridiculously functional, and ready for growth! All in all, I think I did pretty good :). Thanks for challenging me Laura!