A few bad nights for Mabel meant I mostly fell off the exercise and housework wagon this week, but I’m proud to announce that our winter clothes are more or less sorted out. (Not B’s; he’s not included. He wears the same thing all year, minus some shorts and plus some sweaters in the winter. And if he wants them organized he can do his own.)
But my closet looks like this now:
The box holds bags/purses, and the tops/sweaters are organized thus: short sleeved, 3/4 sleeved, long sleeved, wool. The chunky wool ones are on top or hanging. Three pairs of boots are to the right of the box. I don’t use a lot of hanging space because it’s mostly dresses, skirts, and jackets, and I don’t have a lot of any of those. You can see from this that I will be wearing a palate of mostly greens and dark reds/purples this season. Just like every season, because that’s what I like.
I didn’t take a before picture of the closet, but this is what my pyjamas/stuff drawer still looks like, so you can extrapolate from that:
I’m not saying this is all I have: most of my days are spent in jeans (stuffed-full jeans/chinos drawer not pictured), and I have another of yoga pants and one of underwear and one of nicer clothes I might wear once in a blue moon, and a whole suitcase full of things that don’t fit but I’m not ready to give up on, and some more odds and ends in an under-the-bed storage thingy; but the important part is this –
this
is all the stuff I’m getting rid of:
|
| See? Even the stuff I’m getting rid of is greens and dark reds. |
The trash bag holds six pairs of shoes, one of which dates from pre-emigration – that is, more than 10 years ago. The toppling pile has about twenty t-shirts, tops and sweaters, and one pair of jeans that I never liked much. This has now been joined by some summer clothes Dash and Mabel have grown out of (that aren’t nice enough to pass on to friends), and a few shirts B is discarding. All this will go to the next yard sale we’re involved in, or the thrift store.
I got Dash to try on about twenty pairs of trousers, took away a few, and ascertained that my six-and-a-half-year-old still has 5T-length legs, just about, though his hips have grown out of the slimmest-fitting pants. Since he also refuses to wear any shirts that come below about mid-fly (because they might look like dresses and people might think he’s a girl, yaknow), he doesn’t need anything new.
(No photo because his room is dark like a man-cave, and his stuff is all stashed in drawers that don’t make nice pictures.)
And then, I sorted out my box of things that might fit Mabel this season and reorganized her shelves. She can’t reach everything herself, but she’s getting more inclined to choose her own clothes, and I’m trying hard to hold my tongue if her choice is reasonable. At least I’ve put away the high-summer stuff so she’ll be less tempted to try to wear a sundress or short shorts on a morning when it’s 49 degrees outside. (That’s about 9 celcius.)
Her clothes are in IKEA dividers (like
this
) that are supposed to separate things within drawers. When we moved in here, I had no dresser for Mabel and wasn’t using these metal shelves for anything, so we stuck them in her closet and I found the dividers handy (since her clothes were still practically baby things that took up so little space). But her clothes still don’t take up much space individually, and though I’m always on the lookout for a small white chest of drawers for her room, this system works fine for now. From the top, L-R, they hold pyjamas, socks, leggings, long-sleeved tops, capris/long shorts, t-shirts, underpants, bottoms/pants, and skirts/dresses that aren’t hanging up. There are some chunky sweaters in the basket at the very bottom. The top shelf is a mess of hand-me-down shoes that don’t fit yet and summer clothes awaiting sorting.
I could do with another box for the tights stashed on the top left, and I should think about bringing all the upper stuff down so that she can reach it more easily. She needs more dresses, especially since she’s lately become very partial to them; I’m working on that and have enlisted e-Bay. I was very disappointed to miss a really good local used-children’s-clothing sale last weekend, and I’ll miss our local clothing swap next weekend, so my opportunities for snagging the perfect thing are reduced to the thrift store (always there) and the nursery-school yard sale in a few more weeks’ time. And the clearance racks at Old Navy, Target, and Gap, of course.
In case you were wondering, this is what the other side of Mabel’s closet looks like:
I wouldn’t bother showing you, except for my genius sorting system comprising those two boxes. The brown one says “Too big; next season” and now holds summer things from this year that might still fit next, and any summer age 4 stuff I have. The Pampers box says: “Too big; distant future” and contains everything else I’ve amassed for her that will fit at some point when she’s bigger That way I don’t have to re-mark the boxes every year when they’re no longer holding 4s but now 5s and 6s (Mabel, fitting age 6 clothes? Inconceivable!), and so on.
Personally, I’m just pleased that I’m the sort of person who uses a semicolon when labelling a box of clothes. I think it says something about me, don’t you? Yes. Well.
