Organizing Drawers the KonMarie Way

There's not much decluttering going on these days, but today I decided to finally try organizing my drawers the KonMarie way.

Most have probably heard of Marie Kondo by now, author of The Life Changing Magic of Cleaning Up. I read the book years ago and while I didn't follow it to the letter, it did inspire me to declutter even more.

One thing I didn't try at the time, but have been increasingly intrigued by is her method of folding clothing into small squares. With my drawers feeling increasingly stuffed, I finally decided to try it today. So I watched a few YouTube videos to fully understand folding method and dove in.

First I tackled my t-shirt drawer. I neglected to take a before photo, but here's my stack 'o shirts that filled the drawer.

It does take more time to fold the KonMarie way, but you quickly get the hang of it. Plus, I'll only have to fold the freshly laundered clothing each week.

Here's the after. I purged four shirts. While the 30 remaining shirts still fill the drawer, now I can easily see all of them instead of just the top three. Big improvement.

I'm even more pleased with the progress of the other drawers, which are much more shallow than the one above. The MarieKondo method works very well for these.. First up is a jam-packed drawer full of work shirts and sweaters. 

And the amazing after. Look at that empty space! I purged one top and moved a t-shirt to the t-shirt drawer, everything else is still here and completely visible.

My pajama drawer has always been a mess. I used to roll my PJ pants and tops, but they still barely fit in here.

And after, with lots of new empty space here too, which is truly amazing. I relocated a curling iron, but kept everything else. My hair straightener lives here, because I do my hair in the bedroom (with only one bathroom, ya gotta do some things differently). 

I also organized one of the half-size top drawers, which is full of work socks. I should probably purge everything on the right side of this drawer, because I hardly ever wear them, but for now I'm keeping them. Even so after refolding everything and tossing a few singles, there's empty space in here now and I was able to add a small box to store my extra Fitbit bands neatly.

I'm definitely a fan of all of this new space. In fact, I'm feeling inspired to tackle my remaining drawers and the closet next.

Do you use any special organizing or folding tricks on your clothing drawers?

Clothing Inventory

this closet and dresser make up the majority of the bedroom clothing storage

Last night, after browsing clothing inventories on several blogs, including An Exacting Life and Live to List, I immediately wanted to get up and start counting my clothes. I managed to wait until this morning to get started.

It turns out that I have 256 major items of clothing, including tops, bottoms, coats and shoes. This total doesn't include accessories, under clothes, or pajamas. I think I'd be fine with that total if I liked and wore everything, or even most of these things, but that number includes at least 60 (gulp) items in various sizes that I can't currently wear and yet am not ready to admit total defeat in ever wearing again (obviously mostly smaller clothes).

Clothing Inventory

Tops - 154
t-shirts: 42
long sleeve t-shirts: 19
works shirts & blouses: 30
tanks: 5
sweatshirts: 6
sweaters: 44
blazers: 6
work polos: 2

Bottoms - 73
jeans: 9
shorts: 19
dress pants: 32
exercise clothes: 8
skirts: 5

Misc. - 29
Coats: 5
Swimsuits: 3

shoes: 21

Total: 256


All of these clothes and too often I still feel like I have nothing to wear!

my side of the overflow closet is rather stuffed at the moment

More than half of the items are stored in the tiny 1940s closet and two dressers that are in the bedroom. A little less than half--mainly out-of-season items and ones that don't fit--are stored in our largest closet, which is inconveniently located in the basement. Some extras are stored in two dressers in the attic. These are several suits I have, which were fairly expensive when I bought them long ago, that I will never wear again. I keep thinking I should sell them online and get something out of them rather than donating them, but I'm really not sure it's worth the hassle.

Out of these 256 items of clothing, six were purchased from thrift stores. And while that total is low, it's definitely the most items I've ever had from a thrift store. I find it challenging enough to find clothes I like at new clothing stores where there is a greater selection of styles and sizes, at thrift stores it's almost impossible for me.

While doing this inventory I found four items of clothing I am going to donate, plus one for the rag pile, so I'm downsizing already!

Where do I go from here? 
I think my goal will be to keep my total under 250 items of clothing for now, so for anything new I buy something must go. I'm fine with having clothes that fit the storage space I have, but I want to work on only keeping items that make me feel good to wear, plus some size cushions since I fluctuate a fair bit.

Have you ever done an inventory of your clothing? How much is too much for you?

Getting My Kitchen Organize On

If you thought organizing the medicine cabinet was fun, and who didn't, then this is going to blow your mind. Today I give you two words: cutlery drawer.

Did someone order a hot mess?

I've hated this over ten-year-old cutlery organizer for awhile, but I didn't find anything that seemed any better. Until my magical shopping trip a few weeks ago where I spotted something different that I thought my help.

Not only does it just look a lot prettier, it also functions better. No more pushing the blue cutlery drawer back into place everytime I open the drawer. Ahhh... it makes my little OCD heart proud. Although I initially balked at the $17 price tag of this item, I think it's worth it. Especially if it lasts 10 years!

The blue beast didn't die though, it got repurposed to help me organize an even bigger mess.

I give you: the utensil drawer

We actually still use this all this stuff, so I stored some seldom used items, like the cookie cutters, in a different place and reorganized what was left. It's not perfect, but it's a vast improvement, no?

Medicine Cabinet Makeover

  

Once upon a time my medicine cabinet looked liked this. It's a small cabinet inside an even smaller bathroom that lacks storage. Still, it usually wasn't too cluttered, as you can see, but what you can't see unless you click on the picture and view it in a larger size, is that the white finish/veneer on this cheapie cabinet was worn and discolored. It was actually starting to creep me out.

I wasn't sure how well a coat of paint would hold up to the moisture of toothbrushes and whatnot, so I decided to cover it with contact paper instead.

I found this paper at Big Lots and thought it looked cheerful. Putting it up was easier than I thought, and I'm terrible at cutting or hanging things in a straight line.

It looked pretty good even when filled, but it wasn't perfect. Things would fall out frequently and you had to move some things to get to others. Still, I didn't give it much thought until we happened to see a medicine cabinet organizer while shopping this weekend. I didn't buy it when I first saw it. I hated the thought of spending $8 on a big hunk of plastic. But I thought about it all night and the more I thought about it and searched for other options online the more I thought this one was perfect for our needs. So I went and bought it this afternoon.

Now not only is more stuff than ever officially stored in there, but things are easier to get to than ever. And it makes me happy just to look inside the cabinet now. I just love organized spaces!


What's the last thing you organized?

Getting Organized 15 Minutes at a Time

Though most of my clutter is carefully hidden away, lately I've been feeling a bit squished in my little house because there's TOO MUCH STUFF! As is my typical way, I first blamed the boyfriend. Afterall, I didn't feel so squished before he got here. But then he reminded me that 99% of his stuff is contained in one single room, manland. He's got me there. It's my crap that's out of control.

I couldn't find the time to fit in a massive organizing session, so I've been finally taking some of great organizing advice to start small and keep at it. In just four short sessions of around 15 minutes I've already tackled my over-flowing coffee table drawer (shown below after being attacked), bathroom storage cabinets and closet. I forgot to take a before of the coffee table drawer, but trust me, you couldn't fit another thing in there when I started.

If I don't love it and use it, it's out of here! And if you need to declutter, try just working on it a few minutes at a time, you might be surprised how much you can accomplish.