This is the second post in the Clothing Organization series where I discuss the steps I took to eliminate storing clothing under the bed. The room that I am using as the master bedroom is about 10×11 sqft. It shares a closet wall with the longer bedroom next to it, but both closets are half of the wall about 51″x24″. My goal in this post is to show the steps taken from the last post to eliminate the need for storing clothes under the bed.
Go back and read the first post in the series to see my actual starting point in the journey. It shocked me when I saw it all out!
I’ve had walk-in closets for the last 14 years and sometimes a dresser in the closet but I hadn’t had a dresser for over a decade. Since the room is so small, my ultimate goal is to get rid of the dresser. The room can support it but overall that’s still an unnecessary amount of clothes for my lifestyle.
Step 1: Relocate linens out of the room
I had comforters in some of the drawers as well as some décor items. I donated a few of the comforters and moved the others into the downstairs walk-in closet. The walk-in belongs to the spare bedroom so this is a sensible place to store extra blankets.
My décor items were spread all over so as I was finding them I relocated them into the closet shelves of my non-conforming basement bedroom so they could easily be reviewed and donated extras as well. I’ll save this for a future post as I’m still working through these.
Step 2: Make room in the dresser for items under the bed
Then I had to move the small box of items that I liked to keep in the bedroom but aren’t actual clothing and medicine for aborting migraines and refilling my weekly medicine organizer. I was able to move some items out of the dresser.
I was able to put the small miscellaneous bin and the migraine medicine together in the bottom drawer with the swimwear from another drawer. I accomplished this by reviewing items in my off-size/off-season bin and the drawers by trying them on. If they were two sizes off or worn out or not wanted anymore, I donated them.
I continued through this process in the fall and spring to review off-season clothing. Off-season clothing that wasn’t pulled out the next time the season came around was donated. Over the course of two years, the majority of items that weren’t functioning were replaced by better pieces and the old ones were donated.
This also occurred primarily through COVID timing so my wardrobe became much more relaxed or at least I was much more willing to accept the change as permanent (technically it had changed 8 years before when I changed jobs and cities).
Accepting what I really like to wear vs what I can wear:
Especially with sweaters, I had many options for long sleeves and fall-weight sweaters. The truth was that I grabbed for the same ones all the time and I really didn’t go that far between laundry days so it wasn’t necessary to have all these extra sweaters. Some were looking pretty gnarly too with loads of pills. So I went through and picked out about four that I liked to wear and donated the rest.
I kept several additional layering pieces such as hoodies so I could trust I was more than covered. Going through several winter seasons and knowing what I sometimes pull out in cold places in the summer helped me decide what to put where and how many I really needed.
And surprise! I also kept more t-shirts. So I again had to pair them down further. Ultimately I hung up the ones I wanted to wear and added the others to the off-season/off-size bin and was able to put sweaters into one drawer with all shirts in the closet.
I did the same for pants and was able to put both seasons of pants together in the drawer which allowed more room in the off-season/off-size bin for the shirts I wasn’t using.
Pajamas and activewear shirts were some of the items I’d kept in the top dresser drawer. Several went into the off-season/off-size bin or were discarded for pilling or being stretched out. In general, being t-shirts they don’t go into the bin unless they are one size off. I workout year round and wear t-shirts all the time so more than half of my wardrobe never rotates through the off-season bin. Also, some of my activewear shirts were in better shape than my everyday shirts so I swapped them and donated the everyday shirts.
Step 3: Clean up stray items and clean under the bed
I did have some odd items like lanyards and such in the drawers and I reviewed them as either actually functional or things to be donated. Activewear-type items like a waist pouch and some activewear items I didn’t like to wear out but kept holding onto because I didn’t have good replacements also were donated. I really was unwilling to wear them so there was no point hanging onto them.
Now I tend to wear loungewear as activewear. They are very close so I’ve oriented my entire wardrobe to be the type of clothes that I could get up and be active without having to change…for most things. So it’s mostly clothing provided by Eddie Bauer or L.L. Bean. I add in cheaper pieces for shirts and tanks as well. However, the bulk of my high-performance seasonal clothing is coming from those two companies right now.
Another type of item that I had many of was travel packs. I had loads of travel accessories such as slippers, laundry bags, zipper packs, etc. I decluttered loads of these as I had mostly replaced them with better versions anyway. I rarely check luggage so most of the luggage tags could go.
The next post is about fitting dresser clothes into the closet.