Spring Cleaning - The Purge

I'd like to share some very personal pictures with you all today. 
It's not something I show to everybody. 
I trust that you will not be judgmental or critical. 
I hope you'll appreciate my honesty.  

Ready? 

Here goes nothing! 

My closets. 

(What did you think I was going to show you? Also, how lucky am I that my 1930's apartment has so much closet space!)

Linen Closet -- Pantry -- Coat Closet

Bedroom Closet -- Bathroom Cupboard

My spring cleaning list (yeah, I'm still working on it - priority moved to grad school last week when a final took me a lot longer than I'd expected) requires me EMPTY each closet, clean inside and go through everything before refilling. Confession: I love this sort of task, but it is taking a while. During the process, I thought of a few tips to share:

1. For The Sort: Create a "sorting center". 
     Before you empty a closet, have these five stations ready to go: Keep, Consign, Donate, Move, and Trash. I've seen others use fewer categories, but here's my logic. Keep and Trash are pretty self-explanatory. I like to separate consign and donate, because I know that some items won't be accepted by consignment stores. The "Move" category is for items that actually belong somewhere else or to someone else.

[Tip: Go to the consignment shop BEFORE taking items to donate. I usually end up donating anything that the consignment shop won't take]

2. Sort Part Two: Like Items

     "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong" 

During the sorting process, I found some random things that were not with like items. Use this time as a chance to put similar things together. 

3. Refilling: Be open minded!

     Don't be afraid to try new ways of arranging what was in the closet. Hopefully the closet will be less full so you have new options to explore! Plus, you might find something that distracts you (like a box of sorority notes and mementos) between the empty and refill and then you totally forget where everything was before anyway!

[Tip: This is also a great time to reconsider the use storage contains and switch uses if needed!]

4. Use it!

     Samples: I found all sorts of samples in my bathroom cupboard. Many of them have been in there for a while and they were just adding clutter. Anyway, this week I'm using them all up.

     Pantry Items: Plan meals to get rid of pantry items that are almost gone. I'm leaving mine out of the pantry so I think about using them up.

Check out the other posts in my spring cleaning series:
The Plan
The Playlist

I want to hear from you! Do you follow any of these closet cleaning/organizing tips already? What is your best closet organization tip?

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