closet downsizing

ok. this is really embarrassing for me to make this post.  as i have a real obsession with shopping and a desire to own all the clothes.  but i have finally come to the conclusion that i have too much and i need to help myself downsize.

my problem is that i haven't really changed sizes since high school (hello, class of 2005) and so i keep everything that still fits and is still in style.  buuuuuuuut i don't stop shopping.  i keep adding.  and my real true problem is that if i find something i like, say a crew neck tshirt, i get it in every color.  it's awful.  i have a problem.  i admit it.

i'm also in the belief that i wear most of what i own.  however, my darling husband would say otherwise.  so, to tackle my excessive shopping and to test my theory of how much of it i wear, i'm trying some downsizing tricks.

the first thing i did was to decide my time frame.  i live in ohio where the weather is finicky and so i obviously have winter clothes and summer clothes.  my closet is large enough (an entire bedroom, whatever) that i don't put away clothes due to seasons.  it all stays out year round and some pieces i do end up wearing year round.  originally i thought i would do jan 2016-jan 2017 but then i'd have to wait all year to go through my clothes since jan-mar is more snow weather, apr-sept is summer weather and oct-dec is fall weather.  and i'm impatient.  so, i finally decided on sept 2016-sept 2017.  that way i can start the process now and hit all the different weather experiences without having to break up in the middle for the warmer months.

after sorting all that out, i actually got started.  i ran to target and bought some dot stickers - the kind you normally use for rummage sales, grabbed a pen and paper and stood in the middle of my closet.  overwhelmed.

i decided i wanted to know what i spend my money on - heels?  sweats?  work clothes?  sneakers???  so, in the process, i created categories and counted as i labeled.  your categories can be as broad or specific as you want if you do this step.  i just wanted to get a better handle on what i tend to buy so i know to stop buying it.  my categories were mostly broad - pants, tshirts, long sleeve, shorts, dresses/skirts, sweats/leggings/gym shorts, spaghetti tanks, casual tanks, work tops, flannels, sweaters.. and i did the same for shoes - heels, sneakers, flats, sandals, boots..

i began with taking my hangers and hanging them backwards on the rod.  i counted each jacket, cardigan, tank top, dress and work shirt i have and recorded that number.  the idea behind this trick is once you wear the piece and you go to hang it back up, then you flip the hanger back the correct way.  then at the end of the season or year you'll know exactly what you did or didn't wear based on the hanger position.  easy enough.

but i was dumbfounded on what to do with my folding clothes.  most of my clothes are folded.  so, i came up with the stickers.  i went through each cubby and pulled out each item and stickered and counted it.  my advice for this is to put the sticker in the fold so that way when you pull out a shirt the sticker doesn't come off or fall off in the process giving you a false report at the end of the season or year.

sticker is on the inside of the fold

stickers are on the inside of the fold

i used the stickers on my shoes as well.  mostly putting the stickers on the bottom of the shoes or inside on the soles.  stickered and counted.

as i wear the folded clothes or shoes, i'll remove the stickers.  somethings i didn't sticker like my pj bottoms, sweats and leggings.  i have so many and most of them are tossed in a basket and so there was no easy way to sticker them.  and if i needed to downsize them i could just force myself to stick with a certain number like 5 pairs of sweatpants and get rid of the rest..

this is really customizable based on your needs.

once i was done counting everything, i really realized my buying habits.  (please do not judge me - harshly.  may i remind you i've been collecting for well over 10 years..) i have over 60 pairs of sweatpants/leggings/pj shorts/gym shorts.  SIXTY.  i have enough shirts that i wouldn't have to do a single load of laundry in 9 months because i can wear a new shirt everyday for NINE MONTHS.  pants/dress wise, i could not do laundry for THREE MONTHS.  who am i??  i'm not famous or special that i can't repeat clothes.  i know collecting and not getting rid of things for over 10 years would make my closet huge.  but that huge???  put down the shopping cards and lets reevaluate your priorities, girl.

my plan is to maybe go through my winter clothes at the beginning of summer next year and then go through absolutely all of it next september.  anything that i didn't wear this year will either be donated or i may end up keeping it.  items that i do keep i plan to write down and do this process all over again next september.  then if i don't wear it by sept 2018, it has to be donated.  no ifs, ands or buts.  some pieces, like my sequin dress, i may keep even if i don't wear it for a few years for the off chance that we do something for nye.  and obviously if it doesn't fit or it's out of style or it's been 5 years and i need to let the dream go, i'll donate it.

in doing this, i have a few expectations or goals in mind.  (1) i want to find out where i spend my money.  is it so much on casual clothes when i need to invest in work clothes? (2) what do i wear? do i think i wear 80% of my closet but i'm really wearing the same five things? (3) again, what do i wear? do i wear mostly black and white but i have 85 things of hot pink i don't wear? (4) because i will buy the same item in every color or sometimes even in the same color, am i wearing them? do i really need 5 white tshirts?  or should i just keep 2 on hand in rotation?

i'm really excited to see how it turns out and to see if i can prove my husband wrong on what percentage i do actually wear..

guestroom: star wars room

when i asked matt to move in, he said that he would only move in if he could hang his yoda picture some place.  now, i would be lying if i said i loved star wars.  if i even knew who yoda was.  and if i didn't think, perhaps you should hang that picture in the garage.  however, marriage isn't about just me.  it's about compromise and making the other person happy even if it doesn't make you happy.  so, i said he could make the guestroom a star wars room.  BUT i will decorate it so it doesn't become some nerdy kids wet dream.  it had to look grown up and classy.  and a little nerdy.  i guess.

so, we started off with a blank slate.

my niece exploring the new house

and so of course, we painted 3 walls light grey and one navy blue.  it kind of mimics the guest bath. and i put in the bed i inherited when my grandfather passed away.  which is just a full size bed with a wooden frame.  apparently, this was my grandparents bed when they first got married many moons ago.  and i like to keep old things that have been passed down.  but anyways, we started with that bed.  and to keep it looking 'adult' i went with just all white bedding throwing in a few accent pillows in grey or navy.

i also used my old dressers from my room when i was a baby.  originally they were white with 'wood' accents and little yellow flowers painted on the drawers.  matt painted the white parts navy.  however, we did no sanding or priming so we're finding that the navy paint keeps chipping.  however, we eventually may buy new dressers down the road and were just using these for the time being.

i got a small side table from my mamaw that i used as a side table for the bed.  it currently is storing a lot of my scrap-booking material.  but on top, we stacked some books and put matt's old touch lamp on them.  (it was perfect that it was navy!) and i printed off some prints with our wifi password and a small sign saying "be our guest"

on the other side of the bed, i found a small shelving unit at a discount store.  on this, we have a star wars lamp that matt and i made.  we purchased a small lamp at the dollar store.  and we went to a local flea market and bought some old star wars toys.  matt glued them around the base, stacking the characters as he went.  and i just spray painted the entire thing silver.  i think it turned out pretty well.  we also have some more star wars pictures i found on pinterest that i just printed off and framed.  i painted some tiles with star wars characters to be used as coasters.  on the next shelf, i bought a large glass container and filled it with sample size toiletries in case our guests ever forget anything.  and we stacked some of matt's star wars books next to that.  on the bottom shelf, i just placed some towels and wash cloths for our guests.

above these side tables, i printed off more pictures i found on pinterest of star wars characters and framed them.  i chose pictures that were more pop culture than a basic star wars poster.  i feel like that helps make it look more 'adult' than child like.  i also loved that i found the picture of han solo and princess leia that mimic the old drawing by norman rockwell.  my parents have had this picture hanging in our house for all my life.  and i like that i could bring that to our home.

we also included the mirror matt and i made over the summer in the corner.  i always hate going and staying someplace and they don't have a full body mirror for you to use.  i like to know if my outfit looks OK before i leave the house.  and i hate when i don't have that option.  so, i wanted to make sure i included one in our guestroom.

right now, this room is taken over with boxes of wedding stuff.  but i think it turned out nicely.  i'm not sure how often it'll actually get used.  but it was a good compromise for matt and i.  and i believe it really made my house his home.

the picture that started it all

laundry room redo

the bonus room that was created out of the garage included the bonus room, full bath and a laundry room.  the laundry room is on the back of the house which would have been the back wall of the garage.  it was a basic room with yellow walls and my water heater.  nothing special.

before:

my mom and dad painted it just like every other room.  and matt had a washer and dryer in storage from when he moved out to st louis for chiropractic school. (SCORE!) they're old machines he purchased at a yard sale but they work.  eventually i'd like to get new appliances but we may wait until we move in to our forever home or until these break.  we also had some wood shelves that we removed from various closets that matt hung above the appliances for us to store detergents and cleaning supplies.  the white baskets used to organize our cleaning supplies were purchased at home goods.

on the back of the door between our bedroom and the laundry room, i hung a rack that we use to store our wet jet supplies and sewing kits.  by the door to the garage, i purchased a rack to hang our brooms on and in the bags are rags we use for cleaning.

finally, in the small space between the washing machine and the side wall, we installed the old cabinet from the mauve master bathroom.  the counter top is what was leftover from what i purchased for the kitchen.  apparently when you buy counter tops you have to buy a certain length and whatever is not utilized is extra that you just get to keep for whatever??  who knew??  so it fit perfectly in this small space to store our laundry baskets.  there is about a foot or so between the counter top and the back wall that we just store our swiffers and floor steamer.  overall, i think the small space became a cute little laundry room.

also on a side note, our whole house is hardwood and tile.  i found that just sweeping up the dust and dirt wasn't cutting it.  and it appeared that every day more dust and dirt would appear around the house.  i wanted a better option to keeping my floors clean.  matt had brought a long with him a large sweeper that is great for our rugs but wasn't so great for our wood floors.  it did have the option to run on the hardwood but i noticed it was scuffing them up while i was running it.  and not to mention how bulky and heavy it was for lil ol' me.  so i wasn't keeping up with sweeping with that thing.  i wanted something lightweight, something that worked and wouldn't break the bank.  i did some research online and found this Bissell Hard Floor Expert Vacuum.  the price was very reasonable.  it's so lightweight that i can carry it around the house with one hand!  (i have zero upper body strength) and it sucks up everything!  if you have hardwood floors, i would highly recommend this vacuum!

diy: mirror

so, i had this old mirror that used to hang in my old bedroom at my parents.  i originally didn't want to keep it and left it there to be sold in the rummage.  however, it didn't sell and so i brought it to the new house.  i decided i wanted to create a free standing mirror to mimic the one i have in my closet for the guestroom.

i have always hated staying at other people's homes or traveling to hotels where there is no full body mirror available.  how does one know if their outfit is awesome!?  and so, if we ever have guests, i wanted them to be able to see how pulled together they are.

so, first things first.  gather supplies!

matt and i bought 3 pieces of wood at the local hardware store.  i had some left over stain from a previous project and the beautiful mirror.

matt measured my free standing mirror in my closet to decide the length of our wood pieces.  he came up with 66 inches.

once the pieces were cut, he drilled some holes and used these brackets to adjoin the boards.  after putting 2 boards together, we decided that we didn't need the third board.  (which is fine for me..  i have a future project for that board!)

 and sanded the ends he had to cut.

 once all the handy man parts were complete, i helped him stain the wood.

 once we put the mirror on the stained wood, it looked so plain and boring.  my free standing mirror is mostly mirror with a 2 inch frame.  this small mirror and thick frame wasn't the look i wanted.

so we decided to use some of the leftover navy paint from the guest bathroom and guestroom to give it some character.  after much discussion, matt won with diagonal stripes.  and i won on how many navy stripes to do.  compromise.  by this time, it started to rain so we had to move the project in to the garage.  we used painters tape to tape off the sections we wanted to paint navy.  we used sponge brushes and lightly painted the navy so that the stain and wood would kind of show through.

we were both pleased with the way it came out.  (yay compromising!)  after everything completely dried, matt attached the mirror to the boards using mirror clips.  

and here is the final product:

we are going to prop this up in a corner of the guestroom.  i do like the look.  i like the stained wood and navy combo will match the furniture in there. however, the height of the mirror on the boards is perfect for me at 5'1"..  matt at 5'11" can't see anything above his shoulders.  so, if we could have done it again, i would have attached the mirror a little higher since he will be the one to use the mirror most often.  (his clothes are stored in the guestroom since the "master bedroom" we created out of the bonus room didn't come with a closet.)  in order for him to use it, he has to lean it against the wall at a harsh angle causing the mirror to come out too far in the room than i would like.  we'll have to play around with a compromise on that..  but for the most part, i think it turned out better than expected.

puppy tax:

just like her momma, obsessed with her reflection :)

master bedroom redo

one of the last rooms to be pulled together is the master bedroom.  this room originally was the garage.  the previous owners transformed it in to a bonus room, full bath and the laundry room.  there were so many doors coming in to this room.  one from the kitchen, one from the living room, one from the laundry room and one from the bathroom.  we closed off the one going in to the kitchen so we could move the fridge to that space.  the one going in from the living room was wider than a standard door and had no physical door to it.  we had them adjust the size of the opening and moved the door that was attached to the kitchen opening and moved it to the new main door to the bedroom.  this room has a lot of traffic since it's the only way to the backyard currently.  with transforming the garage to a bonus room, the original backdoor from the house now leads to the garage/out building that's attached to the back of the house.  the only way out to the backyard was through a garage door.  with a puppy, we go through the bedroom a lot to take her outback to potty.  so it's been a long time coming to get it to the stage it's at now.

here's the before:

BEFORE

BEFORE

as you can see, there are 2 doors on the right hand side.  the one closest to corner was covered.  the door on the side wall leads to the burgundy bathroom.

after taking out the door that lead to the kitchen, we painted that wall dark grey since that's the wall the bed will be on.  the rest of the walls are light grey (per usual).      

AFTER

we purchased a tempurpedic king bed (yahoo!!  highly recommend the tempurpedic for sure!!) anyway...  the headboard came from target.  then came the purchasing of the bedding.  i believe the sheets are from target and the duvet was found at home goods. the striped grey pillows came from walmart.  the sequin pillow and quote pillow both came from marshall's.  the black blanket was purchased at kohl's.

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

 the mirrored side table was originally purchased for the living room.  but after getting the puppy cage side table, i moved it to the bedroom.  it was purchased at target.  needing a small dresser, i purchased this black one and a matching side table at walmart. the mirror above it i got at target.  the two small black lamps are touch lamps from walmart.  they really aren't worth purchasing as they both flicker and turn themselves off after being on for a few minutes.  the white lamp on the dresser was given to me by my mom.  the lamp shade used to be khaki and i painted it black.  some fake plants by the alarm clock are from marshall's.  the white fuzzy rug is from marshall's as well.  i purchased another one just like it for the living room.  the floral chair was my great grandmothers.  i left it in its original fabric and stain.  i debated on refinishing it but decided i liked it the way i got it.  the 2 small black pillows on the floral chair were originally outdoor coral pillows that i painted black with regular wall paint.  they are a little crusty feeling but they felt like that before since they're outdoor pillows.  but no one sits in that seat so who's gonna complain?

AFTER

next to the dresser i placed a blanket basket and a laundry hamper.  i wanted a laundry basket to match the blanket basket i got at marshall's.  i found the perfect one at target.

AFTER

 i used an old bookcase to display photos of me and the boyfriend.  you see this bookshelf as soon as you walk in to the bedroom.  most of the frames are old frames i've had lying around the house.  some of the newer ones are from kohl's or target.  the small quote square thing is from kohl's.
 

AFTER

finally, i had storage issues.  like in most rooms in this house.  i had no where to put towels as i stated before.  and some other nicknacks i wanted to store inside the house instead of the garage.  i purchased some wood and brackets from lowe's and hung them where the kitchen door used to be.  the second shelf that barely has anything on it is used for the decorative pillows when the bed isn't made.  i have a hard time just lying them on the floor when it was bedtime.  i used shelving as shoe organizers underneath since we're always stopping by the laundry room to take our shoes off or on.

i'm really happy with the way the room turned out.  hopefully next summer i'll have enough money to put a backdoor in the kitchen so i can take the puppy outback through the kitchen instead of the maze we currently go through now.  a girl can dream!

guest bath redo

the guest bathroom will be a complete redo.  we gutted the entire bathroom down to the studs.  we also had to repair the flooring under/around the bathtub.  in my kitchen redo, i showed you where the floor completely rotted away.  that was due to the bathtub leaking in the guest bath.  when they removed the tile flooring and the old baby blue tub, you could see the rotted floor underneath.  gross!

as you can see in the before pictures, the bathroom was a baby blue north carolina fan's dream bathroom.  baby blue bathtub, baby blue tiles from floor to about mid wall all the way around the bathroom, baby blue marbled sink.  too much baby blue for my liking.  we removed the walls since it wasn't salvageable after removing the tile.  the tile floor came up, tub was removed, toilet removed and the sink/vanity taken out.  the only thing in the bathroom that was pretty much left alone was the small closet next to the shower that has shelving for towels and other bathroom items.  i removed the bottom shelf in this closet to store my clothes hamper.

BEFORE

BEFORE

GUTTED

i wanted the guest bathroom to go with the guest room decor.  kinda.  at least have the same color scheme.  majority of my house is light grey, dark grey, black and white.  i decided i wanted to keep blue in this bathroom.  but go the opposite and use navy.  i decided to paint one accent wall navy and do the rest light grey.  i kind of wanted a nautical theme but not so in your face, my momma's kind of nautical.

AFTER

AFTER

as you can see in the after pictures, we did new tile flooring which is the same flooring in the master bath redo.  replaced the tub with a white tub and tiled the walls around the tub with white tiles.  replaced the old toilet and replaced the sink/vanity with white on white.  replaced the medicine cabinet with a new mirror i got at target.  got new lights above the mirror and a new light that is close to the shower.  i got my shower curtain from target.  i purchased two spice racks from ikea that i painted navy and hung above the toilet.  they currently hold extra hand soap and a beachy quote i got at kohl's.

SPICE RACKS ABOVE TOILET

SHOWER TILES

in the corner when you first walk in to the bathroom, was a lot of space i wasn't for sure what to do with at first.  i knew i wanted some kind of cabinet.  in my head, the space was always a lot bigger than it actually is.  i purchased this small cabinet at target.  the navy color was a close match to the navy wall and helped bring the navy color to the other side of the room.  inside the cabinet, i stored extra toilet paper and some guest towels.  on top, i placed the hand carved crab we purchased at the straw market in the bahamas.  behind the crab, i placed a picture i purchased at hobby lobby depicting an octopus.  in the small glass canister, i keep puppy treats for the little pup.  (originally i was training her to use pee pads in the bathroom.  now that she's older, we have got her to use the bathroom outside and she now refuses to use the puppy pads inside.  yay!) on the wall next to the cabinet, i hung two sea shell hooks.  for now, they mostly hold wet bathing suits.  but i envisioned my guest's hanging their towels or robes there.

SMALL CABINET & SEA SHELL HOOKS

SMALL CABINET

 a towel rod is hung underneath the window.  a toilet paper holder is on the same wall next to the toilet and there's a small hand towel hook between the door and the mirror by the sink.  the sink ended up being a lot more shallow than i had expected.  inside i have stored some of my bathroom stuff and extra soaps and shampoos.  i mostly use this bathroom since it is directly across the hall from my closet.  it's so convenient to shower here and walk across the hall to get ready than to walk down the hallway, through the living room and in to the master bedroom.

the small closet in the bathroom has come in handy to store extra towels and wash cloths.  i hide bathroom cleaning supplies on a shelf and hid the clothes hamper in here as well.  i have also used this closet to store some of the puppy stuff she doesn't need every day and extra soaps and shampoos.  (you can never have enough!  especially when you have hair like rapunzel!)

before and after next to each other:

BEFORE

AFTER