Simplifying your Wardrobe

Okay Ladies, grab your Kleenex, your Valium or a brown paper bag 'cause it's time.  You know it is.  Even if you're not moving into a 1968 motor home.  It's time to clean out that closet.  It was SO time for me and admittedly it only happened because it was forced upon me.  And if I can do it, trust me, you can do it too.

I took a lot of pointers from blogs and articles which I'll link to later but first, take a look at the before:

Yup, that's it (after two bags gone of donations/Ebay).  And you can't see, but there are actually another 6 shelves next to the plastic shoe-hanger thingy.

Now, close your eyes and let me wave my magic wand and TA-DAH!

It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  I kept a lot of neutral and black pieces so they could be interchangeable.  And I kept things that I wore a lot, like, once a week (like that blue and white check shirt).


VISUAL GUIDELINES

1) As far as how many pieces to keep, I used this guideline that I found on a blog.

click here to see The Everyday Minimalist's full site: 

2) Here is another site I used:

Click here for the The Beauty File's website.

ARTICLES`
1) The next thing I used was an article from Real Simple online.  It had lots of good suggestions for basic items.  Here are a few items they suggest:

- a black tank

- a crewneck sweater

- a long sleeve white t-shirt

- a long sleeve black t-shirt

- a short sleeve white t-shirt

- a short sleeve black t-shirt

- a neutral colored cardigan

- a white button down

- jeans

- black pants

- wool skirt

- pant suit

2) Okay, one more!  This article has GREAT suggestions on how to actually begin the process on trimming down your wardrobe as well as great suggestions for staple items.  Find it here!

So, I kept 30 items tweaking it a little bit (for example: I don't really wear t-shirts so I substituted shirts that I wear a lot).

The Tools

I picked up some of these handy hangers at Target to organize my 30 items in the most space efficient way possible.

All my pants on ONE hanger! =)

Easy as pie.