Decuttering the Overly Cluttered Home: Clothing Cleanout

So, we all have the ‘one area’ in our home that feels like it could use a little TLC, right? To me, that is our WHOLE home. Ugh.

That being said I should probably preface it with the fact that we never really organized or decorated a ton prior to ever having kids as we worked pretty constantly. When we got married we moved in together as we were both living at home with our parents prior to the big day on October 16th. After our wedding we took off on a jet plane to Mexico for a few days for our honeymoon and when we arrived back we went straight into ‘our home’ that we had been working on getting cleaned up that summer. Next thing I know is a few weeks later my mother had loaded up EVERYTHING of mine (including those little ceramic tea sets I had collected as a kid 🤦‍♀️) and dropped it into my living room.

I’m going to say that this is where part of the issue started because I never took the time to dive into the mounds of ‘junk’ and sort through to keep, donate, or trash it. Well, that and the fact that my grandparents and my mother hoard SO MUCH STUFF. My mother retains all of her receipts – don’t get me wrong though – she has them all organized but she has passed on to me the wonderful mental ability to attach to a piece of paper, such as a ticket stub, because of what it represents.

So this creates more clutter in my already cluttered house and mind. Recently I have realized that I suffer from tons of anxiety (I just thought how I thought about things was ‘normal’ 🤷‍♀️) and I had been struggling with depression after our miscarriage in October 2018 and then with my job and the fact that I never left our home and hardly ever went outside.

My husband and I both decided that since we have THREE girls our house is going to be packed full of girl clothes, shoes, and toys. So, my thought was, since MY closet was SO FULL and hardly ever purge any items then I needed to start purging my own clothes to start the de-cluttering process otherwise how can I expect my children to be fine as I remove items from their closets and dressers if I don’t do it to my own items? Also, I have SO MANY clothes that I can’t even fit all of them in my closet so the top of our dresser stays covered up constantly which just adds to the clutter!

My overly full closet! Can’t even hang up all my clothes!

So, how to declutter your clothes?

First and foremost, you need some boxes or trash bags in order to sort through everything and pitch it, donate it, sell it, or keep it. Personally, I am either donating, keeping, or tossing when it comes to everything I’m going through because I don’t want to take the time to try to sell the items unless they are a more expensive item (like a pair of cowboy boots I’ve worn around 6 times and cannot anymore because my feet grew with two out my three full term pregnancies). I just want this stuff out of my house!

The easiest part – throw any and all underwear and socks away that have holes in them. I say it’s easy but man – it is hard for me to throw away those hole-y undies. They are the most comfortable ones! hehehe

Next, make sure that you are dressed with all appropriate items you would typically wear (for me that includes a bra, a tank top, and blue jeans) because if you have a questionable item of clothing the best way to move through these items is by just trying them on, make your decision, and go on to the next item. When you go through pants/slacks/skirts/etc then make sure to have a shirt (or two) out to try on with them.

Start with tops or bottoms – don’t try to do both at the same time. I started with going through my tops and then dresses. Then a small break to feed our youngest since the older girls wanted to go to my moms for the day. When I went back to work on it again I went through my shoes as she was still awake and I needed to try on all the dress slacks that I have to see if they still fit or not before making the judgement call of donating or keeping. The shoes. Let’s just say that I am rough on shoes SO … a vast majority went into a trash bag with about six pair being donated and keeping around a dozen.

Once you have went through everything close up the box and load it up ASAP so that you don’t take anything back out – especially something that you think that ‘I may wear that one day’ because you will not wear it. Just remember that. Also, if your home is like mine you don’t want your kiddos grabbing out some of their old clothes!

Huge box to donate and a (somewhat) organized closet – I haven’t even made it through everything yet!

Follow along with me as I continue our decluttering in our home – tons more to come with all areas of our home!

For a short checklist for helping with your closet clean out checkout the downloads page!

For other decluttering posts by some fellow bloggers check these posts out 👇

4 Steps to Declutter Your Home This Weekend

How To Declutter When You’re a Hoarder

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