Purge

Lately, the volume of clutter on my side of the closet has been bothering me.

My clothes were so squashed together that they were getting wrinkled just from being in there!

My poor husband only gets about 1/4 of our closet to himself.

So tonight I committed to a closet purge. I went through each and every piece of clothing in there (as well as the sweaters and jeans in my dresser), and decided to get rid of every piece that I didn't really, truly love and could see myself wearing multiple times within the next year. If I hadn't worn it in the past 12 months, it was automatically disqualified.

And you know what? I discovered that I actually like an awful lot of my clothes!

Keepers are on the left. There are a lot more on the left than on the right.
And yes, that is a Care Bear on my nightstand. Grumpy Bear, to be precise.

The left side of the closet hasn't been this empty since before we moved into the house!

Now, mind you, this only includes actual clothing: dresses, skirts, tops, pants, blazers, etc. Pajamas, undergarments, and shoes are not included in this count. (Not including shoes feels like cheating, but I got rid of a bunch of shoes a few months ago, so they weren't part of the problem.)

• 128: Total pieces of clothing I started out with.
• 35: Total pieces of clothing to donate/sell (32) or throw out (3).
• 3: Pieces in limbo. I need some time to think about these.
• 90: The amount of actual clothing left in my closet and dresser.

My goal was to hit 100 pieces or less, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. I managed to reduce the size of my wardrobe by more than 25%!

~75% of my clothing.

Oddly enough, my side of the closet still looks awfully full, albeit considerably less squished. The biggest difference, which isn't very apparent in this photo, is the big empty space in the bottom left side of the closet. As of right now I only plan to replace 2 pairs of tights and a couple of button-down shirts (I only have 3 left!) for the fall/winter. Apart from that, I will only buy something new if I was already planning to get rid of something I have.

I learned a couple of important things tonight.

1. I am awfully lucky. I may not be able to afford every single piece of clothing my heart desires, but I'm not exactly experienceing a clothing deficit.
2. I've had a lot of the clothing in my closet for quite awhile. And I still like nearly all of it. I've come a long way from picking stuff that either falls apart or I dislike after one season.
3. In spite of #2, there was still an awful lot of stuff in my closet that had no business being there.
4. I can no longer fit into a juniors size 3.
5. I'm ok with #4. :-)

Update: I just realized I had a couple of items in the hamper when I did this. Add 3 camis and 2 short-sleeved tops (all of which I love and intend to keep) to the final count. ;-)