Closet Clean-out guide

Spring is officially here! You know what that means, it's time to spring clean! I'm here to help by giving you a very thorough closet clean out guide, using the steps that I use in my own closet.

Alright, going straight into it, you have to understand that to this is a process, to be done correctly will take more than one day. I usually do one large closet clean out, and then I check back in my closet every 1-2 weeks to see if I still haven't worn anything.

If you have an entire day to commit to this, then I would recommend taking EVERYTHING out of your closet. If you only have a few hours, and the whole process overwhelms you, hire someone. If you're local to my area, one of my services is to do closet clean outs! In honor of spring cleaning, I have a special rate if you mention this post. It will be $20 an hour. Depending on the size of your closet, it's usually a 3 hour minimum. (This will be valid if booked by May 31st, 2016)

While you're cleaning it out, you might as well invest some money into hangers. Not only do hangers make your closet more visually appealing, good hangers wont damage your clothes. Wire hangers should ALL be thrown away, they'll stretch out clothes over time and clothes tend to slide off of them. My favorite are the huggagble hangers, because my clothes never slip off, and they're very thin.






Before you start:

Schedule out a time in your calendar to do it yourself or hire a professional, like myself! :)

Buy hangers, I use wooden hangers for my coats, the rest are all black huggable velvet hangers. (Costco is by far the best place to get these.)

Get some delicious snacks, a great playlist or pandora station you can work to and of course, water. If you aren't going at this alone, champagne/wine and a great cheese platter is so much fun!

Large boxes or trash bags.

Cleaning supplies.


Going through the closet:

Take everything out of your closet and empty onto your bed, take all your clothes from the garage too if you store stuff seasonally.

If you can really commit to the day, toss in all your shoes, bags and accessories to go through as well.

Grab 4 large boxes beforehand, label one for sell, one for donate and one for trash and one to mend. You can also just make giant piles on the floor and put them into trash bags at the end.

The first time around, I quickly go through and put stuff into a yes, maybe and no pile. The only things that go into the yes pile are things that I am 100% sure I love and fit me well. I then go back though the maybes and either try them on or ask my self a series of questions.

Does this fit?

Do I feel good in this?

What can I wear this with?

If I was shopping right now, would I buy it?

Have I worn this in the last 6 months, or did I wear it the last season it was in?

If you answer no to all of these questions and you still can't let go, ask yourself why. Usually it comes down to either being sentimental or it was a pricey item. If it's the latter of the two, just sell it and use the money to buy something that you'll actually enjoy and get use of and makes you happy to look at. :) Don't feel bad about letting go. We are ALL guilty of buying something and the tags are still on it a year later. You just have to let go, and start fresh.






Putting everything back in:

Okay, so all of your clothes are thoroughly sorted and you've majorly purged. Congratulations! That was a lot of work, so take a break if you're feeling a little beat. Maybe throw on an episode of friends and eat a snack to re energize yourself. Enjoy 15-30 minutes to yourself while you celebrate the good job you did. Don't get too comfortable though, you still have some work to do.

Now it's time to break out the cleaning supplies I mentioned earlier. Wipe down all your shelves and do a quick vacuum. Dust the poles, shelves, light fixture, everything. It's not everyday when your closet is completely empty, so make it sparkle!

Now you can start putting everything back.


Organizing your closet:

I store my clothing in categories, and it's color coordinated from there. More important than color, is going from casual to dressy. My closet is not very large so all of my jeans and pants are folded. One shelf is printed pants, the second shelf is my basic blue & black denim that gets worn on an everyday basis.

Underneath my pants, are 3 shelves of sweaters. One is for chunky, one is for medium to single weight and the last shelf is casual sweaters/cute sweatshirts that I'll wear outside of the house. You should never hang sweaters, because the shoulders are easily damaged.

All my plain tank tops for layering are folded. If you're limited on space, hanging those takes up too much space and it isn't something that you would base an outfit around so it doesn't need to be seen.

My closet is set up with two hanging racks on one side, a series of shelves in the middle and a longer rack for hanging on the opposite side. The longer rack is the home for all of my dresses and maxi skirts. Dresses are hung from shortest to longest, and maxi skirts follow behind the maxi dresses. Within each length they're sorted from casual-dressy. The two racks on the opposite side house all my shirts. On top I have all of my longer tops so that they don't drag on the floor & they're almost all long sleeve. All tops are sorted by sleeve length (tunics and open sweaters are seperate) and from there they are sorted from dressy to casual, and then color coordinated from light to dark.


Favorite Closet Organizers:

Costo is by far the best place to get velvet hangers. I think it's around $15 for 50 hangers which is crazy! For those of you that don't have a Costco or Sam's club, I linked some other great deals. Make sure to keep the color consistent throughout the closet.

Huggable hangers More huggable hangers (smaller packs and other shapes)

Wooden hanger picks:

White wood Other Stains & pant hangers

I purchased my wooden hangers at TJ Maxx. They also had some great options for pant hangers, and I bought all of those there. I was


Post Clean-out:

Congratulations on your clean closet. Your morning will no longer be spent starting at your closet for 15 minutes thinking you have nothing to wear. It's a lot easier to get dressed when you only have things that you love. I would recommend looking over this post here to fill in any blanks you may have.

To avoid your closet returning to its previous state, be stern with yourself while you shop. We ALL tend to buy things we don't even need or weren't even looking for just because it was on sale. My rule is, if I can't think of at least 3 different ways to wear it in my head, then I won't buy it.

You SHOULD NOT have to go out and buy more pieces to go with your new skirt you just bought. Building a wardrobe is about having all of your pieces being able to blend together. Basics should be covered first, and then you can start to buy the other pieces you love.


Happy Spring Cleaning you guys!!

Please leave me any questions below.

xx, Rachel