THE HOUSE DOCTOR - AN ORGANIZED HOME IS A HAPPY HOME

ORGANIZING YOUR CLOTHES CLOSET

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

To quote Edmund Burke:  “Good order is the foundation of all things.”  This has never been more true than in the case of the organization of a well loved home.   Your daily living needs CAN fall into perfect harmony with your busy life; if you will only just stop for a moment, take a deep breath and get yourself more organized. 

Please don’t think of this part of loving your home as a negative activity!  It can be a fun adventure, and when you are completed with all of it; you will be so happy with the results that you will feel like a whole new person! 

The longer you put this off, the harder it will become.  Saying I don’t have time is just the same as saying “I don’t want to do it.”  Most of us feel this way when it comes right down to getting things organized.  We just keep procrastinating and unfortunately this brings added stress and less harmony into our homes.  Of all places on earth, your home should be the one place where you are guaranteed to find peace, joy and harmony.  That is our goal!  

So here goes; take a deep breath and let’s begin to climb this mountain together!  All the remodeling, arranging and changing isn’t worth a thing if it disintegrates into an unorganized mess.  We have spent the time, money and energy on those things; let’s polish them off by getting everything organized.

With the tips I’m going to give you; organizing your home will become as easy as eating a piece of cake! 

Let’s tackle one happy adventure at a time.  The first and easiest place to start is with your own closet.   

You NEED to have an organized clothes closet in order to function happily in life.  Having your clothes clean, organized and well planned will make a HUGE difference in your attitude at the very beginning of each day.  It will free up SO MUCH of your valuable time. 

How many of us are rushing around in the mornings, wadeing frantically through the middle of screaming kids who are getting ready for school, while agonizing over fixing husband’s lunch and organizing his work clothes (did you forget to wash his socks AGAIN?); looking for that other shoe to go with that outfit again, or wondering what we washed for ourselves to wear when we did the laundry last week?  Why can’t we find it in the closet?   

Every home in America seems to have a sock eating laundry room.  Where do they all go?  When we finally do find the clothes we were looking for, we realize nothing is pressed and we try to get the wrinkles out by sticking the clothing into the dryer for a few minutes.  Once that is accomplished and we put it on and look in the mirror we see a huge gap in the side seam where the threads have come unraveled while in the dryer.  Oh no!  We panic and grab whatever we can find to cover our body with and rush out the door, herding other people as we go.  We wind up going to work looking like we slept in our clothes, and we are totally grumpy to the kids on the way to school and also to dear husband who hasn’t a clue of our stress level at the moment.  All because we feel sorry for ourselves and think and feel that we have no time to tend to our own needs while helping the rest of the family survive.  Everyone is unhappy because stress is contagious.

Been there, done that; do not want to go back again!  Let me tell you there is a much easier way to live! 

The whole goal of THE HOUSE DOCTOR is to explore ways to produce a home full of love, peace, harmony and beauty as easily and as inexpensively as possible.  We want home to be a soothing place where you can enjoy the seasons of an abundant life.  The scene I mentioned earlier is absolutely NOT the results we are seeking here; but everyone has been there at some point and time. 

The joy comes shinning through when we finally begin to understand how to avoid this.  Unknown to half the population in this country, there really can be a day when you wake up on a Monday morning and jump out of bed realizing that your breakfast will be easy to fix, your kids will have their things all ready to go and their homework all finished and organized, your wardrobe will be perfectly planned out, and there will be a whole tank of gas in the car.  You can even smile as you send hubby off to work knowing that you have packed him a perfectly healthy lunch with a sweet little love note tucked inside for a surprise in the middle of the day, and he will be totally assured that he can come home to a healthy dinner on that same evening, maybe even candlelight and wine!  

No I'm not talking about Blondie and Dagwood or Ozzie and Harriet.  (I just told my age and even might have lost a few of you here.)  Honest…..I’m not joking!  It IS possible!  It CAN happen, but you won’t get there in one day.  It is a cumulative process of getting organized one step at a time, and you must lay the foundations for each of these processes to flow smoothly and correctly inside your home.  Soon it will become just like clockwork.  Just trust me and read on.

Let’s start with the most important part first; that would be you!  When Mama isn’t happy; nobody is happy! 

Everyone depends on you.  But guess what?  You need to have your life in order before you can help anyone else.  Your clothes are important.  You can't leave the house without them!  Let’s begin by organizing them first. 

Wait until you have a whole day to set aside so you can tackle this project from beginning to end and be done with it.   Chose a day when hubby has to work and send the kids to grandma’s house!  Go straight to your laundry room and take an inventory.  What do you see? 

You need to make a list of the items you will need to purchase for the operation of your closet and your laundry area.  Do that first. Put these items down on your list and check for what you already have and what you do not have.  I’ll give you a good basic list.  You can adjust it for your own purposes and budget. 

If you go right out and buy everything I am mentioning here, you will spend about $200 at your local Walmart.  You will recoup much of your budget by not having to buy any cleaning supplies when you buy groceries for the next two months.  You will also not need to buy any new clothes for awhile, because you are going to see how far these organizing techniques will stretch your current wardrobe.  You might be shocked!  You can also make do with what you have on hand and around the house until you can afford some of the items on my list.  If you need to just buy them slowly over time as you get the money.  Figure out what works for you.  So my list below is the top of the line, luxury supply list!

ITEMS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR LAUNDRY ROOM AND CLEANING OUT YOUR CLOTHES CLOSET

 Several matching, stacking plastic clothes baskets (3 or 4 for sorting and two for storing dirty clothes),

30 metal and plastic clothes hangers like you find in uptown department stores, both for hanging dresses, shirts and blouses. They should have that little hole in the middle that lets you hook another hanger on to them (get 30 of these others too) that hold pants and skirts with the metal clothespins built in on each side for fasteners. 

3 or 4 containers of good laundry detergent.

3 or 4 containers of fabric softener

3 or 4 bottles of spray-on stain-remover. 

A steam-iron and an ironing board along with some good spray starch. 

One box of sandwich sized plastic baggies. 

Two small plastic trash containers with a swinging lid on top that you can keep covered, but easily drop things into.

10 clear plastic shoe-box-sized containers that can be purchased at the dollar store. 

So go on now!  Go right out to the store immediately and purchase any of these items that you do not already have on hand and/or decide how you will use what you have to make them happen.  Bring it all home and go straight back to your laundry area/room. 

Now remove anything from your laundry area/room that doesn’t pertain to doing laundry!  It is a laundry area, not a junk place or an extra storage bin.  Gather all the unnecessary items and place them wherever they really belong.  Establish a house rule that no one will pile things in the laundry area/room just because it looks like an available space.  It isn’t.  Sweep and dust the area.  A clean laundry room means you will be folding clean clothes and not dragging them through a pile of dirt and grime and having to wash them all over again!  

Not today, but later after you have your clothes closets in order and your basic laundry area set up, it might be nice to consider anything you could do to make this area feel more cheerful and pretty.  After all, you do spend a good bit of your precious time inside this part of the house (even though we are going to eliminate a lot of that work time after today) you still we be in this part of the house often.   Why not make it as pleasant and as upbeat as possible?   If you are blessed enough to have an actual room just for laundry you might think about using one corner of the room as a craft/office/desk area.  You could be tending to your desk work and bill paying while you are waiting on the dryer to finish and the washer to spin out.  Just a thought to tuck away - but all of that is for another article on another day.  For right now just concentrate on getting your basic laundry area needs covered and in good order.   

Take any of those flimsy plastic hangers (the kind you get clothes on at WalMart) or any wire hangers (the kind the dry-cleaners give you) and either throw them away or give them away.  Use the new ones you bought instead.   They will hold up much better because they are strong and they swirve.  Hopefully your laundry room has a hanging space available to hang your new hangers from.  These should be THE ONLY types of hangers you will ever need from this point forward.  They are well worth the small investment. They are excellent choices that will  help keep your clothes much more organized.  Combining the two types of hangers together for hanging as one gives you so much extra closet space.  Enjoy the fact that there will now be no more tangled piles of hangers to sort through and untangle on laundry day.  Just hang the new empty hangers on your laundry shelf until needed, making sure you keep all the hooks turned in the same direction.

Hopefully your laundry area/room has some amount of shelf storage space where you can place all the containers of laundry detergent, fabric softener and stain remover.  It may sound crazy to store so many of them at once, but this means you have at least one month’s supply (probably more; maybe even TWO months) of all your laundry cleansers, and you will not have to make that last minute run to the store just to pick up laundry detergent whenever you finally get around to washing clothes.  This will give you at least a whole extra hour in your day each week for a month, so use that time to do something you haven’t had time to do with your husband or kids.  Have a date.  Read a story. Sing a song together. Make mad passionate love.  Cook a special dessert, take a bubble bath,etc.  You will be amazed how not having to make so many little trips to the store changes your life! 

Organize these detergents neatly in the near by space that you have available.  If you do not have shelving, I suggest you find a way to make that happen.  It will be well worth the time, money and effort to have a place to keep everything organized and together.  Find a good place to store your iron and ironing board, then pray that you never have to use them!  I hate ironing, but sometimes it is necessary.  You don't want to have to go out and buy these items at the last minute before an unexpected event.  Best to have them ready and on-hand in a place where you can conveniently locate and use them.    

Take a damp rag and wipe all the dust and spilt detergent and lint and cleansers off the tops of your washer and dryer and surrounding areas.  Find a space, either on the top of your washer and dryer, in a corner of your laundry space, or on an empty shelf nearby for storing the plastic clothes baskets.  Keep them neatly nesting within each other until laundry day.  You will use them for sorting clothes.  

Make a space for the two small trash containers.  Put a trash bag inside both and use one for throwing away the lint from the lint filter of your dryer.  Empty this when full.  Saves steps.  Use the other one for a place to put wet dish towels and dish clothes after use until laundry day arrives.  The top on the container will keep them from smelling up the whole house and they will be out of sight.  Every time you do laundry; remember to empty this container and wash them.  Store any wet items here until you can get to washing them.

Put ONE clothes basket in your bedroom beside your clothes closet for right now.  It will become your dirty clothes hamper.  Once your closet is clean and organized, just set it inside the door.  Use a tall one that doesn’t take up much floor space but still holds lots of laundry.  Drop your dirty clothes in here at the end of the day.  Just close the closet door and all of your dirty clothes are out of sight.

Okay, this next task is going to sound crazy at first.  Take everything you have hanging up in your closet that is washable off the hangers and sort into stacks on the floor of your room by colors, blues with blues, reds with reds, blacks with blacks, etc.  Keep the dry-cleaned things hanging, but lay them on top of your bed and sort them into like-colored stacks too.   Now put one stack of the clothes into the washer at a time and wash, dry and hang on a temporary hanger until you find a way to coordinate the many single pieces of your wardrobe into whole matching outfits that you are sure you will be wearing.

Tip for when you are washing clothes:  when you pour your liquid detergent into the washer, have the fill-water already turned on and running to fill up the washer.  Measure the detergent out into the cap of the detergent container and hold the detergent under the running water of your washing machine to dispense.  When the water washes the detergent from your detergent cap into the washer, simply replace the empty cap on top of the detergent container.  The washing out from the fill-water while you put the detergent into the washer will keep the cap clean after use and prevent it from becoming a sticky mess when you turn it upside down again and this will keep it from leaking all over your  washer and dryer space, leaving detergent residue everywhere.  

Now, take one clothes basket out of the stack on your laundry room shelves and set it on the floor of your laundry room for holding the clothes that you no longer wear or use.  Discard them as you go.  As you wash and dry each load of clothes hang what you REALLY want to keep on the new hangers.  ONLY KEEP WHAT YOU REALLY WILL WEAR.  Drop what you do not need to keep in the laundry basket so that you can take it to your favorite charity later.  So much of our closet spaces are cluttered with things we never use!  Get rid of those things!  Fold them and put them aside in the clothes basket.   When the basket is full, load it into a box and drop off at your favorite charity.  Others may be happy to receive the things you are not using.  Your closet will be happy to have more space!  You will not have been wasteful.  If you have spare clothes left over when you are through sorting that you are sure you will not wear; get rid of them!  Don't feel guilty.  Don't make your closet space feel guilty either.  

Wash and dry everything and hang whole groups of coordinating pieces and matching outfits together.  Put the shirts, blouses and tops on the top hanger, underneath that hanger hook in the other hanger with the metal clasps for hanging pants and skirts.  Hang very dressy dresses by themselves and put less used dressy items at the back of your closet. 

So your whole coordinated outfit should be hung together, such as shown in the photo.above. 

   

Since your closet should be completely empty with your unmatched clothes all either piled on your bed or sorted in clothes baskets for washing, you can match everything as you launder them.  The colors seperated together just makes easier matching when you are putting outfits together.  Make sure they are all hung securely and neatly using your new hangers. You will probably come up with many new combinations that you enjoy.  This is the beauty of taking the time to sort through things.  It will be like getting a whole new wardrobe.  With all of your clothes out of the closet and starting the coordinating with a new slate, you will get creative and see many more pieces that you already have that you love but didn’t know you had a match for. 

Make a list of the separates that you want to keep which have nothing to go with them.  Fold  them into a separate basket until you are able to coordinate a whole useable outfit from new purchases.  Don’t let them take up room in your closet until they can be used.  Tuck this list into your wallet and ONLY buy the needed items when you are shopping instead of buying on impulse. 

 Once you get a complete outfit sorted out with the separate matching pieces all ready to hang together; pick out the jewelry that you will wear with that outfit.  Put that assortment of jewelry (I usually have a necklace and earrings and maybe a bracelet) into a plastic bag and ziplock the bag to store. Attach the bag of jewelry for each outfit behind the clasp on the lower hanger of your coordinating clothes.  (See the photo illustration.)

Now everything (exept your shoes) will be hung together when you pull your outfit out to wear.  No more searching through the closet for three or four pieces that go together then running back over to the jewelry box to pick out your jewelry for that outfit.  No more untangling necklaces and looking for earring backs.  Everything you need is right there in one place, and all hung together when you need it.  This makes life so simple and easy when you are dressing each morning! 

When you have your first outfit all together with it’s own set of jewelry, hang it on the bar in your closet nearest to you as you first open the closet door.

Some people like to hang like-colors together in their closet because they are looking to make it easier to match things.  We already have everything coordinated together in once place; so  I tend to disagree with that thought, even though it DOES look pretty!  

Instead; I like to hang the outfits in the order that they will be used.   Assemble all of your clothes this way, starting with your favorite outfits first, then mixing and matching all the left over separates together in the combinations that you like.  Don’t hang anything that you are not sure you will wear.

Hang one coordinated outfit at a time in your closet until you have at least a month’s worth of clothes all coordinated.  This would be about 30 coordinated outfits, one for each day of the month.   If you don't have that many clothes, just use what you have and make this a goal for new purchases.  Slowly add to your collection of outfits until you have 30; then STOP!  You will never need to go clothes shopping again!   

Remember to hang all outfits in the order that you want to wear them, allowing for work outfits on work days and casual outfits on casual days. If you will be needing two outfits for some days just hang them side by side then move on to the next day's clothing needs.  Just go down the rack thinking “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and start all over again four times in a row.  Hang all your clothes in the order of what you want to wear for the next 30 days of the upcoming month. 

Guess what?  If you don’t have time to wash for a whole month, you will not have to worry!  For one whole month your wardrobe will be beautifully coordinated and in order.  As you find the time to do laundry, just remember to keep coordinating everything this way as you go along. 

Now, isn’t that a whole lot better?  Is your mind feeling a whole lot less stressed?  Don’t stop here though; we still need to work on shoes, pajamas and underwear.  Easy-peasy though!…Find a drawer for your underwear and fold it neatly in that drawer.  Again – I suggest 30 of everything.  Find another empty drawer for your pajamas and a few sweat pants and t-shirts to fold to wear around the house when you are just “being comfortable” and relaxing.  Almost done…...

You should have nothing in your closet now but your wardrobe.  Closets are meant for clothes, not extra storage warehouses!  Keep your closets functioning as they should.  Hopefully you have a shelf above your hanging clothes.  If not; have someone install one for you, or do it yourself.  THERE SHOULD BE NOTHING ON THE FLOOR UNDER YOUR CLOTHES!  When you vacuum your closet, nothing should be in the way of your vacuum cleaner.  Everything should be easily visible to you when you open that door.  No junk piles!  Also, no one can hide out in your closet without you noticing their feet!  Just thought I’d throw in a little safety; not that you probably need it, but it will make you FEEL safer if you ever suspect anyone.  Just open the door and look – if you see no feet – you are home free.

Now take those ten clear boxes that you bought from the dollar store and store a pair of your favorite shoes in each one.  Stack them neatly on your shelf. Put the shoes you wear the most in the most accessible spots.  If you are like half of America you will have several pairs of shoes you never wear left over.  Give them away with the extra clothes.  Let someone get some use from them.  Just keep up to 10 pairs of shoes, the ones you REALLY wear and when you look up at them on your shelf now you will be able to find them easily because they will be neatly stored in those clear plastic boxes and you will be able to see the shoes you need through the box. 

Welcome to your coordinated life!  By the time you reach this point you should be feeling very grateful.  Grateful to have your closet organized and your stress level reduced; but also grateful that you live in a world where you have so many clothing choices that you can take for granted the fact that you own 30 coordinated outfits, including jewelry and shoes.  We have so much abundance in our lives these days and there are still places in the world where people only have the clothes on their backs and no place to hang them.  We are very, very blessed and we should never take that for granted.  Thinking about all of this may even give you a guilt complex.  Please don't let that happen.  Today it is trendy to appear less materialistic by only wearing the same clothes over and over again and only having a few pieces in your wardrobe to worry with.  I see the logic, and the sincerity in this line of thinking; but I also think for most of us today the logic is misplaced and misguided.  It APPEARS that you are doing without and helping the world, but in fact you are simply not using your blessings.  You doing without does not mean that others automatically have!  If you want to help clothe the needy of the world think about sending the extra money you have normally been spending on making your unorganized wardrobe work for you as you rush through life to someone who could actually use it for buying clothes that they need.  You can easily do this once you have your 30 outfits neatly hanging in place; because as I said before; you will never have the need to go shopping again!  Take that several hundred dollars a year you have been using because of your unorganization and give it out in surprise gift certificates to broke college students, or give it to a mother with six children to clothe.  Now that would be more useful for everyone.  You also could volunteer the time you save by not having to do laundry so often, and not having to run to the store all the time to work in a local shelter that provides clothing for those who find themselves in need.  Remember, you are going to take everything you don't use to your favorite charity too; so please stop feeling guilty for receiving the fruit of your hard earned labor and just remember to thank God for His awesome provision of giving you an abundant life that overflows to add to other peoples abundance too.  Rejoice and be glad that you are using wisdom and order in your life and don't take on other people's misplaced and misguided guilt.  

Next step – go and do this same thing for the rest of your family members, or have a closet cleaning seminar in your home to teach everyone how to do this for themselves.  Now each person living in your home will be coordinated with good, clean, attractive clothes that they like to wear for a whole month.  Your family portriats will look awesome!  Your Christmas cards will be lovely!   Make everyone take a closet inventory about every six months and keep the order going.  This step shouldn’t be too hard with the foundational work you have already done up front.

I hope you have enjoyed this first step in getting your house organized.  Keep reading THE HOUSE DOCTOR section in my Saturday blogs for more organizational articles.   Keep looking for more organizational tips as well as the usual decorating and remodeling tips for making your house into a home. 

So go enjoy your extra time; your pristine and organized laundry area, and your coordinated wardrobe!  I will eventually post another article which will have instructions you can use for making all of your own cleaning products.  This will save you even more money, make your home healthier and keep you doing the things you enjoy instead of pushing a shopping cart all week.  Be watching for that article during an upcoming post, hopefully before your first few months of laundry room supplies dwindles down.  For now, just bask in the new peace and harmony you are now going to find in your morning routines simply because you got your whole household's wardrobes and closets organized!  Life is good!