Painting the kitchen has whipped me into a manic redecorating frenzy. I’ve had to touch almost every surface in the downstairs of the house (the upstairs is next) to get the fine layer of dust off of it from the sanding that the painter did while repairing the walls. I actually had to ask Mike last night to come and make me dinner because as I stood in the kitchen I kept seeing more things to clean!
I keep finding specks of red paint too, and I’m trying to make sure we get all of those up before they do damage.
On top of the kitchen, I’ve been clearing out my closet. Sure, I have thinned out the clothes in the past and donated them to Northwest Assistance Ministries, but this round has been HARD CORE purging. I decided a few weeks ago after watching one of those dangerous HGTV shows that I really wanted nice hangers. They give the closet such a clean and polished look. My theory then was that if I bought a set amount of wood hangers, that was all the clothes that I could have. Buy a new shirt? An old one has to go. If you have 40 hangers for shirts, that means you have enough shirts to go for almost 6 weeks without doing laundry. That should be plenty of shirts.
I bought wooden hangers on Saturday. Sunday, I couldn’t wait any longer to dive in and start using them!
I have since realized that I have a “summer” (most of the year) wardrobe and a “winter” wardrobe, plus a “casual” wardrobe and a “work” wordrobe. Since I’m not working in a corporate office, I don’t need corporate clothes. It is so hard to get rid of some of them though. Not because I like them, but because they are nice clothing in good shape. I have made a special donation pile for the Dress for Success campaign to give them to, and it helps me feel better about it knowing they will go to help someone that needs work clothes. The rest of the piles are going again to NAM.
I’m about halfway through the closet, moving all of the clothes off of the wire hangers and on to wood ones. Even after the initial pass, I still find myself questioning some of the clothes to see if they are wood hanger worthy. Several have not made the cut, and the donation bags are growing larger.
When I ran out of the wood hangers yesterday, I started working on Mike’s side of the closet. Nothing can escape me! (I didn’t put his clothes in the donation pile though – he did that himself.) He is getting white plastic hangers, his hanger of choice. I can’t stand plastic hangers for some reason, but they look nice on his side of the closet.
Mike commented this morning on how he didn’t think that a change of hangers would make such a difference in how the closet looked. He then went on to suggest that maybe we needed to get a color wheel and sort all of my clothes in order. Smartass. Instead, I pointed out that they are sorted by clothing type – short sleeve on the bottom, long sleeve on top. Long sleeve clothes are then divided between jackets, dress sweaters, more casual sweater sets, and even more casual clothes.
Now it is on to the pants/skirts/dresses section of the closet. Well, after I clean the kitchen up some more first. I can only handle the dust so long before it makes me start sneezing, so giving myself a break from that to work in the closet has probably been the best move.
I’ve taken progress photos of both the kitchen & the closet, but I can’t post them until I find my card reader for my camera. I moved so much around before the painter came, now I’m missing things! I’m sure it will turn up soon, and they will be posted tonight! Uhm, that is if I manage to tear myself away from organizing everything!
6 replies on “Who, Me?”
Since I was a teen I have always color-coded my clothes. Dresses on one side, jackets / sweaters on the other and they my favorite color to the least favorite from left to right in the middle. It helped me keep track of clothes that if it wasn’t in the wash or hanging up, odds my sister had swiped it from me and it got her into easy trouble. Now it’s more of convenience knowing it’s in the wash…
Tell Mike thanks for the chuckle he provided, I needed it 🙂
I used to color code (as well as by sleeve length) my closet…now I have too many items to bother trying to cram items back into place!
Note to self: don’t eat trail mix while reading Christine’s blog 😉
hey there — this is so random, but it’s late here in chilly, drizzly seattle, and i’m surfing the web after googling, in despair, “husband hates seattle,” and your blog popped up. so here is my two cents on why seattle sucks (his view mostly) and why it’s ok (my biased view), just in case you try to get out of houston and come this-a-way.
sucks: housing ($320k will get you a “sweat equity! great value!” in ‘burbs), commute (the “5” in I-5 stands for the speed most cars go at rush hour), weather (rain turning to showers, with light drizzle expected by end of the week), people (can be like the weather. soft but chilly).
ok: food (farmers markets, organics galore, nifty asian cuisines), laid-back social climate (green, liberal, etc.), great medical care, mountains, oh, and my parents are here (which = superb care for our little girl, meaning i get to *leave the house alone!* at times)
hubby is from the sunny climes of georgia/florida, and not even close to a decade has made him at home with the moss, the coffee, and the aforementioned “minuses.” any negatives re. houston and other such warm places are greatly appreciated for my arsenal. i’ll come back to read the decorating tips once we actually buy our first home. i’m sure it’ll need the help!
I cleaned out my closet about 2 years ago when Wally put in a new shelving system and cedar on the back wall. It was great. It stayed organized for about a year, but now it needs to be gutted again. Part of my problem is that I store my yarn there, too, and I have more yarn than clothes.
oooh, a kitchen redo? fabulous! i’m sure you’ll do a great job in the kitchen… since your bedroom turned out so snazzy. once we move into our townhome in the fall, we’ll tackle the painting probably around winter time. i can’t wait to see the progress pics!
You know me, missy. It’s all white plastic hangers with grippy thingies for the clothes that tend to slip off. And I do it by color.
I am so proud of your organizational frenzy!