Minimalist Wannabe

Since my last post, I found Becoming Minimalist on Facebook and have felt so inspired and motivated to make some big changes towards minimizing our belongings.  I decided to start with the worst closet-closet #2.  It was an ugly, but rewarding project! 

I had no vision of what I wanted the end product to look like, no plan for how I would get rid of stuff so it was quite a process.  It took me THREE LONG days to de-junk this space.

In the previous post I talked about reducing numbers by 25-50%, so  I chose to start with what I considered the funnest part of de-junking-INVENTORY.  I took inventory of the jeans in this closet (& closet #1) and slashed the number in half.

It was an immediate reward for my minimizing efforts and just what I needed to keep going!

By the end of day 2 things were looking MUCH better....at least INSIDE the closet was.

  This is my office (where closet #2 is located) during the de-junking phase. NOT pretty!

Here's inside my much better closet by the end of day 2.

  I was feeling pretty accomplished at this point.  I had gotten rid of a TON of stuff but still asked, is there something MORE I could get rid of, condense or combine? Of course the answer was YES.  All of these containers held craft supplies (plus another not pictured from closet #3).  I kept the biggest 3 drawer container  and got rid of all the others

This was a bigger project than I thought it would be.  It would have gone smoother had I actually had a plan of how to de-junk BUT using my common sense got the job done and I've learned a few things I'll do differently on closet #3.

Here's all the stuff we got rid of-gave away.  The black bags are 55 gal contractor bags; they're filled with our CLOTHES.  I was sad to see how much money, effort, and time I have spent of acquiring THINGS just to never use them and eventually get rid of them.  What a waste!

My office is back to order

I should probably just leave on the unrealistic pretty note portrayed above but here's the truth:  a fraction of the junk in my closet migrated to Ivan's office and closet #3. Soooo stay tuned for the closet #3 update!

A Living Oxymoron

I am materialistic; I despise it & want to deny it but my house, closets, and storage are screaming evidence that I am; however, another part of me is an aspiring minimalist who values simplicity.  

I am made up of two completely opposite forces, and I'm seeking to find harmony and balance.

Here are some pictures of my closets.  I have already made several successful purges.  I WISH I had pictures to capture the height of the issue but these will have to do.

The picture above is the closet in our bedroom.  We bought a set of 100 wooden hangers and initially, we wanted to continue to buy more wooden hangers to replace our plastic ones; since I've been getting rid of stuff, I told Ivan I wanted to make a goal to stick to 100 pieces of clothing between the two of us! Yeah, I'm wondering if that's possible for us; may need revision but it sounded like a really awesome goal to work towards.

In college, where I gathered most of my clothing collection, I often got anxiety imagining a fire burning all my clothes and how devastated I would be.  Ridiculous, right?  

My clothes meant A LOT to me.

For YEARS, I made attempts to get rid of clothes I no longer wore or fit; I usually ended up with 5 pieces or less, I was willing to go away or donate.  You know the dialogue, "I might be able to fit this again" "I only wore this once, it's too nice to give away" etc. etc.  I also held onto things I thought I might need in the future even if that meant YEARS in the future. 

Here's our 2nd closet:

Before this purge, all the white hangers were used.  Doesn't seem like much but I did get rid of a good chunk of clothes.

The "chunk of clothes" I got rid of

Bye bye shoes

I had 15 winter coats I gave away, felt really great to get rid of them

Our 3rd Closet

I will post "after" pictures as I continue to whittle down