This is my closet

You can see that it's not terribly large for a grown woman's clothing. Now imagine winter bedding and spare pillows in here, too. Since I shrank and moved those items to another closet, I can actually see what I have.

I spent an afternoon sorting out winter clothing and doing some basic organizing in my closet. And here it is, about as organized as it will likely get for now.

I like to keep pants and skirts on the bottom bar, blouses, jackets, and good tees on the top bar, a stack of sweaters, easily visible, and shoes on the floor where I can lazily grab them with my feet. A summer hat and visor are on the top shelf.

And yes, I do hang my jeans. They stay nice longer that way. I have a pair of dark denim and a pair of black jeans on the bottom bar.

I use the hooks on the door for a couple of casual bags, an umbrella (still using that this week!) and pjs.

The boxes on the top shelf hold most of my winter clothes. In addition, I have 2 sweater dresses and 2 pairs of wool slacks hanging in a tall closet elsewhere.

(The blue bin is my laundry bin.  And in the left-hand, back, lower corner is a box of projects and gifts that just haven't made it to better storage locations. I could still squeeze more clothing storage space in here if I cleaned up that spot.)

Some things I noticed about my clothes . . .

I tend to dress drab. I think I've been in some sort of funk for the last decade or so -- just look at all the beige, black and brown. And these are my summer clothes!

I also noticed that I don't seem to shoe shop much. Those shoes, some winter dress and rain boots and the sneakers on my feet, are it.


I do like sweaters, even in summer. They cling in all the right spots and skim the bulges I'd prefer to ignore. The sweaters are stacked in the milk boxes on the left of the lower shelf. Those cardboard milk boxes, the kind that 2 gallons of milk come in, are just the right width for a folded sweater.

On top of the boxes of sweaters are a selection of summery scarves. I have a large scarf selection. Some of them were my mother's and date to the early 70s. Most of my scarves were jumbled in a drawer, so I culled through them to find some especially summery ones that I can use this summer to change up some of my outfits.

I seem to buy the same item over and over. I have 3 long-sleeved white blouses. And in packing away my winter clothes I came across 4 black sweaters. As a woman with not very much clothing to begin, that is a lot of repetition.

When I do buy color, I seem to just buy from a very limited palette. Pale blue-green and coral pink are evidently favorites of mine. Yet, I'd never given that any thought before.

Although I only buy 1 or 2 clothing items per year, I can see that if I go back to work this next year, I will have enough of a wardrobe to cover my needs. I do take very good care of my nicer clothing. You probably can't guess which, but one of those sweaters is from the 1970s. Someone reading right now is probably saying, "the 70s! I wasn't even born then!"


I also have a couple of drawers of casual tops. I'm an especially poor shopper when it comes to casual clothes. Of my two casual shirt drawers, one has been dubbed "the ugly shirt drawer". These are the shirts that I'll wear only if I haven't gotten to the laundry, and my "first pick" tops are not available. Unfortunately, "the ugly shirt drawer" contains far more tops than the "first pick" drawer. I have a drawer of stretchy casual pants, a pair of capris, and a skort, as well.

My around-the-house casual clothing is where I really need to focus my attire attention. I've been looking through some of my hanging clothing and trying to think of new ways to incorporate some of those items into my casual daily wear. One of my white long-sleeved blouses has been slated for the next dye bath -- I'm thinking a light shade of purple. I could wear it as an over shirt with a purple tee-shirt that I like. The hanging shirts to the left are already casual shirts. I just need to remember to wear those as well as my tee-shirts in the drawers.

I can really see where a tidy closet is essential for dressing smartly. (Mom, you were right, a tidy room is a happy room.) "Seeing" my clothes clearly, without the added encumbrance of winter bedding, has opened my eyes, and my mind, to how and why I dress as I do. And now, I can go forth and make changes that I think better reflect who I am today.

How do you store winter bedding?

This is about half the pile that I shrunk. It doesn't include a queen-size
 comforter, pillow and 2 large bath sheets

In past years, my closet has become the receptacle for all items needing storage, including winter bedding and guest pillows. I don't need to explain just how much room extra pillows and poufy comforters take up!

This year -- no more! I take back my closets and insist the assorted off-season linens live elsewhere!

One teensy-weensy problem. This stuff won't fit anywhere else, not in it's current state.

So, while talking with a friend on Sunday about cleaning out closets (her's had become the receptacle for her grown children's dolls, games, childhood books and school papers), she suggested I try the vacuum bags that you fill with stuff, then suck the air out with your vacuum. I'd seen these before, but didn't know if they really worked all that well. She assured me that they worked well for her and one of her grown daughters. Ziploc Space Bag is the product.

I picked up a set of these bags from Bed, Bath and Beyond (using a 20% off coupon -- they have coupons in the mail and magazines on a regular basis), brought them home and began stuffing away with blankets, flannel sheets, comforters, duvet cover and shams, king-size mattress pad, guest pillows, and even a couple of nice guest bath towels.

And yes, they really did shrink the size of my pile, by about 1/3 to 1/2. I did discover that I got the maximum shrinkage with the poufier items, like comforters and pillows. Heavy, dense items, like flannel sheets didn't shrink as much, as they already lie fairly flat.

All the bedding, fleece lap throws and towels in 4 space bags

The end result -- I now have been able to get the winter bedding out of my closet and stacked neatly on the top shelf of a hall closet, where before all that had fit was one comforter and 1 pillow.

And, can I tell you a secret? I actually thought this was a fun afternoon. I got a thrill watching all that stuff get shrunk down into tidy, little slabs.

Some tips for using these bags:

• Lay the bag out flat on the floor and just in front of the opening, begin your pile of items to go into the bag, taking into account that your pile needs to be a few inches less in width and length than the bag.
• Fold long and flat. You don't want a bunch of small bundles, but one large mass of layers.

• Slide the pile into the bag all in one shot, and don't overfill. The zipper will pull if you fill above the line near the top edge of the bag.
• After the pile is in the bag, stand the bag on end and shake the items down into the bag a little.
• Run your fingers or the zipper pull along the tracks several times. The zipper pull itself does not work very well, and I had to use my fingers to pinch the zipper closed, and slide the pull back and forth, pinching as I went. (The zipper pull is so flimsy that it flew off the bag on first zip. It's easy to get back on, but almost pointless, as it doesn't work very well.)
• These bags can tear, rendering them useless (of course, I imagine mine will someday be covered with duct tape to cover up gashes, holes and wear spots), so store them away from sharp objects, like a nail sticking out of a closet wall.
• The bags are reusable, but the area that I think will be most likely to fail is right around the vacuum hole and gasket. When opening and closing the vacuum port, hold the surrounding plastic bag in place, with your fingers on the edge of the vacuum port itself, to reduce the possibility of the port tearing away from the bag.
• Your vacuum hose may not fit onto the port exactly (mine didn't). No worries. Just press the vacuum hose up against the port, it will still work just fine.

How and where do you store your winter bedding in the off-season? Have you been blessed with a house with a lot of storage? Or is your situation much like mine, where the family has accumulated more stuff than you have closet space?

There was a bonus benefit. This got me to clean out and organize my closet. I realized that I do indeed have a lot of clothes. I've just gotten into a rut and haven't worn many of the items.