Project Update: 10-13

If you see small household items on my front porch sporting name tags, don't worry. I haven't gone nuts and named frying pan "GEOFF" or the microwave cart "MEL B." I've just been--as Christa put it--freecycling like a boss.

• Needlepoint kits I'll never get to? Gone.
• Electronic charging station that seemed like a good idea at the time? Adios.
• Board games we haven't played in 5 years? So long.
• Carry-on suitcase with the missing zipper pulls? Bye!

Freecycle is not my only pal as I edit/purge/simplify. Craigslist sent a nice momma my way; she bought a bag of toddler boy clothes from me.

And at 3 a.m. today, I decided that tomorrow would be CLOTHING SWAP NIGHT. About a dozen friends woke up to learn they've been invited to stop by at 7 tomorrow with clothes and other small items they no longer want/need. It looks like four people are coming so far. If all goes well, everyone will unload a few items by leaving them with other folks who'll enjoy keeping them.

A lot of these items are from the closets that I worked on most of the yesterday. Office closet looks WAY better now. Living room closet now makes a LOT more sense. I've still got some figuring out to do in the coat closet, and probably spend more time in my son's closet, but things are looking pretty fine!

Christa, Day 13: It's Hard to Imagine My Closet Getting Any More Edited

Who has two thumbs and had a banner Freecycling day? This guy. I passed along my little painted table - a truly grody piece of furniture I picked up during a housewarming party in Rhode Island when Tedd and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and then painted, a new cheese board set that was an oddly non-pertinent thank you gift from the contractor who renovated our bedroom, a spoon rest that was lovely but was doing not much other than taking up space on our counter until it started taking up space in my cabinet, and the nut grinder that was one of the presents we opened on our oh so sad Christmas morning of 2010.

But that's in the past. One day in the past, since we're talking about Day 12. Let's look at Day 13, shall we? 

Simplify your wardrobe. Is your closet bursting full? Are your drawers so stuffed they can’t close (I’m talking about dresser drawers here, not underwear). Simplify your wardrobe by getting rid of anything you don’t actually wear. Try creating a minimal wardrobe by focusing on simple styles and a few solid colors that all match each other. Read more.

Are my closets bursting? Ha, no. Finally, a day where I can roll out some expert cred. Not that I'm any kind of real expert, but I did study up on the capsule wardrobe concept in the early days of my employment - often because I had nothing else to do - and I've been making due with a limited work wardrobe since I started. In my non-professional life, I actually make even more dues (ha). Mostly because my uniform consists of black pieces, denim, and a handful of easy to wear jersey maxi dresses. For my pro wardrobe, I look at working with a limited selection a challenge. For my day-to-day wardrobe, it's about ease. And also looking fab in black.

Maybe I'm just deluding myself and everyone at work notices that I'm wearing the same 15 things over and over again, and my friends are all giggling about my limited black on black with black wardrobe, but my guess is no. When was the last time you noticed when someone had reworn an outfit? Possible never. I lay the blame on the media, which maintains that wearing an outfit more than once is a frugal choice and that every season must come with an updated, if not entirely new, closet full of clothing. My present-day style icon? Angelina Jolie. She keeps things classy, likes black as much as I do, doesn't go overboard with her hair or accessories, and frequently is photographed wearing outfit repeats, a favorite pair of shoes or shawl, or otherwise very simple clothing as compared to her Hollywood counterparts.

I consider her one of the few famous people who has accessible style. Maybe it's not everyone's style, but it's been a good primer for me - someone who up until a few years back was terrible with clothing.

So when I read something like the following pull from an article on The Punch, there's a part of me that says "Lucky!" and a part of me that says "Dodged that bullet!": Siegle reports that we buy nearly half our body weight in clothes a year, but more than 20 items hang in our wardrobes unworn. We also have four times as many clothes as we did in 1980.

What struck me about that pull was not all the shopping that must be going on around me, but rather the bit about 20 unworn items. I like to think of myself as pretty practical when it comes to clothing, but now I'm wondering if even I have 20 items that aren't getting worn (barring a few pieces of random formalwear that you can pry out of my cold, dead hands). Off the top of my head, there's a pair of pants that doesn't fit and probably never will because as much as I would like to be that thin, I like to be eating food more. And a t-shirt that is so soft but too silly for wearing outside of the home. Things like that.

Edit them, you say. Well, there's a problem. That weird t? I layer it in the winter. The tight pants will go in the donation box tomorrow, but for the most part the things I am not wearing now will see some play in the wintertime when I need to layer or lose my arms and legs to frostbite in his horrible climate. Mainly the things I am not wearing right now are not seeing any action because it's too warm, and being that my wardrobe is already so limited, I'm a bit afraid to do much editing other than getting rid of things that absolutely, positively do not and will not ever fit. Wouldn't want to have to restock when the cold sets in.

Julia's Day 13: Empty my nearly empty closet? Okay!

Today I discovered that I had missed a few things during the big Day 9 affiliated closet purge. And that's ok! I should really share a picture of the giant pile of stuff I am amassing for donation.

Rebecca, Days 11-13: Editing rooms, closets, drawers

In the past week:

From my closet, I removed many items that no longer fit and/or have lost their appeal to me. Like James, I prefer to sell unwanted items when possible; but my favorite place to consign clothing recently closed, and I don't really feel like going through the hassle of booking a consignment appointment elsewhere and waiting a month or two for my items to be seen.

So instead, I took them all to Buffalo Exchange. They give you cash immediately for any clothing/accessories they think they can sell. They didn't take that many pieces, but I got $40 for my efforts. Then I gave several pieces to a friend's daughter, and I am hoping to organize a clothing swap among friends for other especially good pieces. The rest, I will probably donate to charity or post to Freecycle.

From the family room/living room areas, like Natalie, I went to work on toys. My toddler has way too many to play with. Most of what he hasn't been playing with lately went into bins in the basement, and he hasn't missed a thing. I'm going to winnow things down further when I have a chance. I also edited our decorations, moving a few things around and eliminating a few others, and I like the way things look.

I would love to work on the basement, but that's tough because we have a lot of things down there that we do use seasonally--or that we are saving for a second child we hope to someday have.

From my son's bedroom, I pulled a ton of clothing from his drawers and closet. He has way more clothing than he can wear, so anything in his current size that I didn't like (especially sports-themed items), I put into a bag and posted on Craigslist for only $20. No takers yet, so if anyone would like a bag of 3T boys' clothes, let me know! I did the same with the 24M/2T stuff he has outgrown, saving only a few favorite and/or gender-neutral items for potential future use.

The other area that needs serious editing is my home office. I don't have a great office at work, but my department is supposed to be moving to a much better space next year, and I'm hoping I'll be able to move lots of my academic books and files there at that time. In the meantime, I'd like to make a plan of attack that includes:

• Sending old papers/files to One Dollar Scan for digitization
• Donating/giving away some other books
  
• Trying to rehome the closet and dresser full of craft projects
  

Re: the last item, before my son was born, our guest room was essentially full of items for potential crafty projects. Yarn, fabric, embroidery and needlepoint supplies, etc etc. I gave a majority to a very grateful friend who actually works in the wardrobe union in Boston and has a dedicated sewing room in her home. I kept what I thought I could get to soon and/or really, really loved. But the reality is that I have way less time for crafting than I'd like, and I still have a closet and dresser half-full with craft-related items. I think I just need to part ways with anything I can't work on very soon. With the limited time I have, there is NO NEED for an entire stash. If I ever run out of crafty projects to do (ha!), I can just go buy a new one, right?

If anyone reading this is crafty and would like to take a look through my stash, please let me know. :)