Category: minimalism

Two Tricks for Feeling Like Your Closet is “Enough”

Want to feel like your wardrobe is enough? Here are two tricks to help you feel content with your closet instead of itching to shop (thrift or otherwise!):

1) Download a free closet app (or pay for a fancy one!) and go create a new outfit every time you get the urge to shop.

It takes some time on the front end to photograph and upload your clothes (or find similar images online), but for me it’s worth the creative charge I get from playing around with potential looks – and it helps me remember that great outfit idea I had right before falling asleep. (What, you don’t think about fun ways to wear your clothes to help you drop off to dreamland?)

Alternately, you could write down possible outfit combos – or draw them!

2) Write down everything in your wardrobe, grouping by categories (e.g. jeans, dress pants, long sleeve tees, warm sweaters, etc.). Something about seeing that list growing longer and longer as I tally up my clothes definitely switches my mindset from “not enough” to “Wow, I have a lot! Maybe even too much!”

Bonus level: write down everything in your closet from memory. Now go look through your actual hangers, drawers, and shelves to see how well you remembered the contents. And here’s the kicker: donate whatever you couldn’t remember! Because if you couldn’t recall it was there…do you really like/need/wear it?

The donate part is hard core and I didn’t do it because I forgot one of my favorite/most versatile blazers, ha! But even if you don’t donate forgotten items, it helps you realize you have great stuff you don’t even think about, leading to instant improvement in wardrobe satisfaction.

(Hat tip to The Minimal Mom for the “from memory” part. She has lots of great ideas for culling extra clothes from your closet.)

What are your best tips to keep yourself from adding to an already-sufficient wardrobe?

Women in Clothes, Tidying Up, + Shira Gill’s Closet Makeover

Happy New Year, Thrifters!

The babe is here and I’m on maternity leave. Mostly this leaves me with not a lot of time to do things – my hours are taken up with nursing, laundry, napping, trying to entertain two kids, and showering (if I’m lucky!). But that leaves me a surprising amount of time to think while my body is otherwise engaged. Part of what I’ve been thinking about a style shift: what exactly I’m gravitating towards these days (vs. what I’ve always done) and how to incorporate it in into my wardrobe, particularly given that my body is still changing, I don’t have a ton of time to thrift (yet), and I’d like to pare down to even fewer, but more beloved, pieces.

Here’s what I’ve been chewing on during maternity leave as I mull over all of this. Hopefully you’ll find some of it interesting food for thought as well!

Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix

KonMari’s tidying makeover show is exactly my kind of reality TV. In a similar vein with the Great British Bakeoff and Queer Eye, Tidying Up is a feel-good show that makes you want to root for the protagonists, even as they struggle along the way to change their relationship to their stuff. But unlike GBBO and Queer Eye, which focus on baking (NOT my strong suit – I always ruin cookies) and whole-life makeovers (ain’t got the time, interest, or money), Tidying Up gave me an inspiring boost to do something similar in my own life. As I’m usually either nursing, playing dinosaurs, or shoveling laundry into the dryer, that boost has so far led to mental evaluation of my wardrobe, not physical cleanout. But just wait ’til the kids are both sleeping at the same time (and I’ve finished a 20 minute nap) – I’m comin’ for ya, closet!

Closet Makeover with Shira Gill

I received some extra money at the end of the year and decided to use it to pay the early bird registration fee for Shira Gill’s Closet Makeover program (it was just under $200; now it’s $249). For a blogger billing myself as “building a stylishly edited closet from thrift store finds” – emphasis on the edited – I could see myself feeling a bit embarrassed to be paying someone else to help me sort through my closet. But I don’t – because the at-your-own pace program feels like a fun way to do something entirely non-work focused with my time away, another way I can be using my brain creatively while loading the dishwasher (again).

I’m also looking forward to the live Q&A calls (for which you can post questions ahead of time and which you can watch afterwards, another great flexibility for someone who doesn’t know what time her newborn will be up or asleep) and to the Facebook community because if I love anything more than organizing/editing my own closet, it’s watching other people edit/organize their closets (which is why I so enjoy watching Marie Kondo in action). It’s just so…satisfying for the part of me that feels refreshed by clean, lovely, bright spaces. Shira’s styling aesthetic (featured prominently on her website and Instagram) also checks that box for me and adds to the appeal of the course. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton

In the completely free category, I checked out the e-book version of Women in Clothes from my local library. (Thank you Overdrive!) When Kelly of Alterations Needed mentioned it on her Instagram account, it sounded like an intriguing anthropological glimpse into women’s lives and relationship to their clothes – and indeed, it is. The authors asked women from all over and with many different backgrounds a series of questions, and as I read through them I’m starting to ask myself the same questions and find some intriguing answers that are helping to shape my style shift. If you like reading style profiles, particularly ones that are savvy about issues of race, gender, and culture, I highly recommend it.

Here’s my favorite quotation so far, from survey respondent Liane Balaban:

“Dressing is about helping yourself do the work you were put on the earth to do. Everyone has their own relationship to beauty, but I would say: Don’t be obvious. Try not to buy things that are mass-produced. Flea markets, church bazaars, or local boutiques are good. Curate rather than shop. Your wardrobe should be a collection of beloved pieces you wear for decades. When you witness beauty, it’s visceral – there is no second guessing it. Plato says that feeling of absolute knowing can inspire the beholder to quest after similar revelation in other disciplines of life – poetry or music or science, for example. The ultimate experience of eros, then, is one that inspires you to live in a questioning, questing way, seeking truth in all areas of life. Ergo, true beauty turns you into a philosopher!”

“Curate rather than shop” really sticks out to me – having a vision instead of just grazing is an excellent way to approach thrifting or an edited closet – as does the idea of visceral beauty (like when you find a signature piece that’s outside your usual style but just sings to you).

What have you been reading/watching/going through lately? Anything to recommend?

Minimalist Bedding

One way we’ve pared down over the years is to get rid of excess bedding. You know – the kind that somehow takes over your linen closet and makes you feel overwhelmed on laundry day. Or the kind that drives you mad when a guest comes to visit and you can only find one clean pillowcase of a matching set.

Searching out secondhand, thrifted, and ethical linens and donating or recycling what we don’t truly need or love has allowed us to feel organized and streamlined.

 

Here’s what we’ve done to simplify our bedding:

Get rid of extra sheet sets. Currently we have one set of sheets for our bed; one set for the guest bed; one extra in case either of those first two needs a tight turnaround; and one set for our preschooler’s bed. For the thrifter-on-the-way, I’ve kept 2-3 fitted crib sheets from our first go-around and don’t plan to buy more. (We were gifted/secondhanded 5 with our first kid and never used them all.)

We find that even when factoring in occasional accidents, this is enough, because it motivates us to wash sheets as soon as they become dirty. Knowing we need to put them back on the bed that same night propels us to get them out of the washer and into the dryer ASAP – which means no manky clothes that sat too long in the washing machine. And when they’re dry, it saves us the chore of folding them because they just go right back on the bed. (Because let’s be honest, who wants to fold fitted sheets? No one, that’s who.)

To donate sheets in good condition, drop them off at your nearest thrift store (check first to make sure they take linens). For sheets that have gone hole-y, take them to the nearest textile recycler or cut them into rags.

Nix the top sheet. This was initially controversial at our house, since I could care less about top sheets but the spouse was rather attached to them. When we got a down duvet, however (see below), he was converted, mostly because sleeping with just a down duvet feels like sleeping on a cloud – ahhhhhhh. Our preschooler also loves going without a top sheet because she’s much less likely to get tangled up in a blanket than a sheet.

No top sheet also cuts down on washing/drying/folding. Plus making the bed is 1000% easier – we just shake out the blanket or duvet into a semblance of smoothness and we’re done.

We do put a top sheet on the guest bed because we assume that not everyone who comes to stay will want to go top(sheet)less. And we also keep the top sheet for our bed folded neatly in the linen closet for the hottest part of the summer when a duvet would roast us alive.

Consider secondhand. Unlike mattresses and pillows, which should not be bought secondhand (hi bedbugs and dust mites!), sheets and washable blankets make for great thrift store finds. You get a sense for whether the item wears well; you can feel the goods before purchase; you save money; and it’s an ethical option since you’re not creating demand for new linens that might be made in environmentally or ethically questionable ways.

We got our backup set of sheets at Goodwill; they’re a pleasing blue and are 100% cotton from IKEA. We also got our duvet cover secondhand from a parishioner who thought we could use some extra bedding as we moved into the parsonage. Pattern-wise, it wouldn’t have been our absolute first choice, and we may eventually buy something we like better; but in the meantime it’s actually kind of grown on me:

Consider ethical retail options. If you have access to a Costco membership, they sell quality sheets and down duvets at great prices. (It’s where we got both our duvet and our main sheets.) While you need to check individual brands on offer for their labor/environmental practices, Costco as a company has great labor practices including paying employees a living wage with benefits.

IKEA also offers sheets that are made with sustainably grown cotton and/or lyocell, both of which reduce water, pesticide, and fertilizer usage. (Check the “materials and environment” tab on a particular product on their website to learn more.) If we get a new duvet cover one day, it will be one of these.

Etsy also offers US-made duvet covers but usually for a heftier price. Be sure to check whether the listing explicitly says “Made in US” (or other country with good labor practices). “Ships from US” might mean nothing more than that the US seller imported it from a wholesaler before sending it to you.

And nix microfiber when possible – it feels super comfy but is made with petroleum-based polyester fibers, tiny bits of which break off and pollute the watershed every time you wash. Try cotton sateen or a cotton/lyocell combo for a luxurious-feeling, plant-based alternative.

 

Tips to make life with linens easier:

For that backup set of sheets, learn how to fold a fitted sheet.

Learn how to easily put your duvet cover back on the duvet after washing it.

Speaking of duvet covers – if in doubt, get a duvet cover that is smaller than your duvet. Duvet covers often come in different dimensions than the duvets themselves, which can be a huge headache when trying to find the right size. You might be tempted to size up on the cover for roominess, but a duvet that is the same size or smaller than the cover will use that extra space to move around a lot more, leaving you with flat, empty edges and weird lumps. Our duvet cover is a few inches shorter than our duvet in both dimensions and you can’t tell – it just fills the space instead of looking overstuffed.

 

What’s your sheet situation? Any suggestions for how to slim down your linens and/or creatively source them?

Thrifted Storage Solutions – Or Not

For the longest time, I was keeping my thrifting eyes open for a shoe rack to try to corral this mess:

Every time I opened my closet, I averted my eyes from the horror that was the top shelf. Despite how clean and uncluttered my clothes looked hanging just below, it was kind of ruining my closet mojo.

I pride myself on thrifting anything I need for storage (or repurposing something I already own) – I dislike the idea of paying retail money for storage solutions, probably because there is so much out there designed to make you think you’ll never be organized without splashing out cash. But no matter where I thrifted, I couldn’t seem to find one – or anything that really could work in a pinch. So I let the shoes (and the scarves, and the router, and the…I don’t even know what some of that was?) sit in an inglorious jumble, messing with my feng shui.

Until I realized I didn’t need to thrift, or even find, any storage solution. I just needed to move my off-season shoes elsewhere, and put everything else where it belonged.

So the shoes I wasn’t currently wearing went in the guest room closet where we keep off-season clothes (one pair that was too tight got donated). The scarves went on the scarf hanger thingy that hangs in my closet. And the antennae/router junk (used to very, very occasionally watch network tv and stashed there to keep out of the reach of my kid, who kept messing with it) went in a box and into the guest closet shelves where it could easily be set in the guestroom, where it gets the best signal.

Here is my new shoe shelf:

Ahhhhhhhhh.

What corner of your house has been waiting – so you think – for that perfect storage solution but really just needs a clear out or something as simple as a repurposed shoebox?

My Kondo-ed Sock Drawer

While I got a lot out of reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – including the ever-useful closet-clearing question, “does this spark joy?” – I’ve never properly Kondo-ed my possessions.

It’s not that I’m against the idea of collecting all my clothes, or books, or kitchen gadgets, etc. in one place and holding each of them to determine how they make me feel. (I think that would be rather invigorating, actually.) It’s just that I seem to accomplish tidying in waves: Hmm. The closet/bookshelf/kitchen drawer is looking a little full. Think I’ll do a quick review to see how joyful I feel about all this stuff. It’s analogous to the “these pants are getting a bit tight” method of weight management rather than the crash diet method.

Regular but small-scale evaluations of my stuff seem more manageable, time-wise, than Kondo’s recommended “tidying marathon.” And it’s nice to have something to tackle when I get the “clean out and organize” itch.

But I think the real reason I like doing it this way is that it lets me work up to letting go of items with which I’m not quite ready to part. Usually this is about an image of myself, an image that’s more fantasy than real life, more vanity than authenticity, more fear-of-the-future based than present-need-based: “This architectural blouse makes me look so hip on Instagram.” Or “What if I need this [insert kitchen thingamabob here] some day? It’s so practical!” Or “What will people think of me when they see the entire collection of Mitford novels on my bookshelf?”

In my experience, shedding those phantasms takes time. When I recently ditched the books from college that made me feel well-read (but that went largely unread), it was because I could finally embrace the fact that I’m much more likely to re-read a good mystery or a cozy, psychologically astute portrait of small-town life.

(Seriously, as a pastor, Jan Karon’s Mitford novels – while occasionally a bit simplistic – and Patrick Taylor’s Irish Country Doctor series are morale-boosting manuals on how to live life in service to the “takes all kinds” variety of people you find in a church and still keep your sanity and sense of humor. Prayer and whiskey both seem to help.)

I do have a picture frame conveniently placed in front of the Mitford series just in case a guest is feeling super judgmental. So maybe I still have some work to do.

But these prolonged tidying forays have taught me that Marie Kondo is spot on about at least one thing: my wardrobe/bookshelf/kitchen drawers feel the happiest when I focus on my feelings (whether I love something) rather than my thoughts (rationales for why I “should” keep an item).

Oh, and she’s right about boxes for organizing. So helpful.

So since I like seeing pictures of other people’s lovely, neat drawers after they’ve been Kondo’d, I thought I’d share my sock and underwear drawer, where I just axed two pairs of socks (donated) and two pairs of saggy underwear (textile recycling) that were still “practical” but utterly unjoyful. I also just realized I would feel mentally happier if I used one little storage box (from some storage system I bought years ago and then tried to make my spouse use for computer stuff) to give it a little structure instead of letting all the socks and underwear run together:

(Yes, I roll my big socks and undies Kondo-style because it’s aesthetically pleasing but ball the athletic socks because I can’t be bothered. I am a walking contradiction, what can I say?)

Disclaimer: if you don’t count the three-pack of new underwear I picked up at a Goodwill in North Carolina, absolutely none of these clothes are thrifted, because used socks and underwear rarely make it to thrift stores and when they do, I’m not buying them. And because the sleep t-shirts are from my childhood and the bras are retail – saggy used bras that may or may not be my size are not something I thrift. (Oh, the wonders of a proper bra-fitting! High on my list once I have exited the maternity/postpartum stages.)

(Wait! I lied! The King Kong Empire State building t-shirt was a prize find from the Scituate Goodwill in college. Still use it as a sleep shirt because it’s worn so wonderfully thin and comfy.)

Cute and practical but no-longer joy-sparking socks:

Well, that was a heftily psychological excuse to show you my sock drawer.

What’s your psychological approach to tidying? Or your practical approach to organizing your sock drawer?

Moving and Minimalism – Part 2: Toys

Although (as we discovered in Part 1) I am not a decor minimalist, as we have moved into our new home I have embraced a completely different aspect of minimalism: keeping my kid’s stuff boxed up because she does not miss it.

This kid is the only grandchild on both sides, and we have very generous neighbors and friends who often give her toys as well (many from Goodwill, yay!), and despite my regular trips back to the Goodwill she has more playthings than she knows what to do with. After we boxed them all up to move, she asked about some items that were put away, but overall she seemed content with the few things we’d kept out.

Once we got to Boston I decided to ride that train and piled unopened boxes of toys (and books – oh, the books!) in her closet. Grandma brought down a box of dinosaur toys, the church left a dozen little animals all around the house for her to find, and we had play-doh and markers for the coloring book pages my sister drew for her. (Yes, both the church and my sister are amazing. I think The Sister should sell custom coloring book pages, yes?)

The kiddo was perfectly content with that initial load for the first week or so, and we have slowly, slowly added things, either by opening an occasional box or by letting her use her birthday money at the thrift store. (8 dollars goes a long way shopping secondhand!) We also found kid-sized hockey sticks at the thrift store and my husband, who played when he was a kid, has had a blast teaching her backhands in the backyard using a ball the church gave us.

With fewer things around, she seems to play longer and more creatively with what she does have, and there’s a lot less to clean up/keep track of. I simultaneously can and can’t believe that it hasn’t occurred to her to wonder where former obsessions like her pop-it beads and code-a-pillar are. I’m hoping to drag out the toy reveal as long as possible, maybe with a rotation where we pack one toy away as we bring out others.

The books, too, are still boxed up apart from the one we initially opened. In the meantime, by George, we have discovered the library! We never took her in Atlanta because she was in daycare (so no need for the daytime programs libraries offer) and the full-size adult bookcase in her room was so full it had books we had never read. But while the kiddo’s at home for the foreseeable future, we tried out the kid-friendly mini-branch in our town, and it’s amazing – you can check out toys while you’re there (great fun without adding to our toy collection at home) AND there’s a kids’ resale shop that benefits the library. You know that’s the first place I went! In the next few weeks I’ll share what I found there to keep her warm during cold Boston winters.

Like lots of parents, I wrestle with how to keep her toys/books at a manageable level – and how to effectively involve her in the process so she learns to do it herself. She’s an enthusiastic kid and once she’s spied something that’s been tucked away, she’ll want to play with it (even if she ends up abandoning it twenty minutes later). Luckily, she’s great at playing with things in the store without needing to take them home; but asking her whether she wants to donate something rarely gets a “yes.” She’ll also randomly ask about X toy she hasn’t played with in weeks, which makes it hard to donate things on the sly – a technique that is starting to feel disingenuous now that she’s a preschooler and old enough to realize what’s happening.

Given all that, moving and keeping everything in boxes is an unexpected boon. I’m planning on having a conversation with her about how much better it can feel to live with less stuff, and as it starts to sink in, maybe she’ll pull the trigger on a few of those donations herself.

 

What have you done re: keeping things in boxes after a move? Dealing with your kids’ stuff in a respectful but practical way?

Moving and Minimalism (Or Not) – Part I

Moving is a great time to come face to face with your relationship with stuff – whether you want to or not.

With our recent move, I was mostly in the former category. While our move was stressful in some ways and there was a lot of work involved, I relished the chance to go through all our possessions and get rid of what we didn’t need or want. (My spouse willingly halved his t-shirt collection, joy!)

I returned things to those from whom we had borrowed them, passed other things on to friends, and made many, many trips to the Goodwill – not the least of which was to say goodbye to Daniel, the man who worked the donation door at our closest GW and who had become a friend over years of frequent closet-cleanout donation runs.

We decided to stage our condo for selling potential, and as we prepared to do so, I wondered whether I would experience the epiphany some minimalists (for example) describe when staging their homes. You know – It feels so open and light! We should have done this years ago! It’s a popular minimalist concept to stage your house as if to sell, but then just live in it. (See what I did there? Popular concept, pop minimalism!)

But as I sat in our echo-y condo, the majority of our belongings already on their way up Boston, I realized I’m not the stereotypical minimalist who thrills to clean white walls and sparely furnished rooms. Contrary to my relative non-attachment to stuff (see: closet cleanouts above and my willingness to ditch wedding gifts we’ve never used), I missed our things.

I didn’t miss individual pieces, per se, but the feeling that the things we have more or less purposefully accumulated and come to love made our house into our home. Without them (and with the addition of the weird chemical smell of new carpet), our place just seemed… sad.

Obviously, the memories you make, people you love, pets you adore, etc. are more important in making a home than stuff is. But as I follow the aftermath of Harvey and the ongoing reality of Irma and think back on the houses I helped gut and the waterlogged possessions I shoveled into dumpsters after Katrina – man. I ache for the families who, while safe and sound, will come back to houses full of the ruins of familiar pictures they’ve walked past, kitchen utensils they’ve used, couches they’ve curled up on every day for years. The things that made the house theirs, even if the people and pets they love – please, God – made it through.

Even if we don’t let it rule our lives, stuff is important. And I’m grateful that ours is intact and that the stuff we staged with will arrive today so we can keep making our new house feel like home.