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Have you heard the saying, “Junk expands to the space allotted?“ If you were to walk into our master closet, you would see a prime example of this truth! It’s like every time we move, which we do quite frequently, instead of either throwing stuff out or putting it a proper place, we (mostly me) just pile (throw) it in the master closet. I mean, I’m not inviting my friends into my master closet for any reason. Grown ups aren’t playing hide and seek or sardines in my house and need a place to hide! That might be fun, though.

In our last house, the entire back wall of the closet was layered with bins of decor and frames that we never used in the 3 years we lived at that address. Unfortunately, as you can see, those same pictures, frames, and miscellaneous decor have taken up residency in this closet as well. Ugh! I hate even walking into this stupid closet.

For a while, I had all of our files (mortgages, credit cards, education records, etc.) stacked in here as well. I’ve moved most of them to the new office, but there are still remnants lingering. Why does buying a home require 85,000 pieces of paper? Multiply that by the 2 homes we own. Maybe part of this clean out project will be finding a place to keep these 170,000 pieces of paper that I’ll only need to look at if someone wants to dispute whether or not my fence is encroaching on common space.

My intent is to use a mix of Ruth Lounsbury’s LESS method and Marie Kondo’s Konmari method as I approach the nitty gritty of minimizing the collections of stuff in this particular closet. Ruth would have me decide exactly how I want the closet to function – what is its purpose? – before I begin the project. Then I’m supposed to empty it! That’s quite the task given the amount of junk stuffed in the closet at this point. I’ll just do my closet section by section because I don’t typically have any large blocks of time to spen  d going through every inch of this space. And I need to sleep so I can’t keep my bed covered with all the stuff that I have emptied out of the closet while I find time to sort through it.

Marie Kondo, known for the Konmari method of decluttering, would have me touch every item and say “Does this bring me joy?” While I’m certain I need to touch every single item in the closet in order to make good keep or toss decisions, I laugh at the thought of whether or not items bring me joy! However, there is great value in only keeping items that do give us a good feeling – clothes that make us feel good and fit well, home decor that brings about a feeling of welcome, photographs that invoke smiles or bring about happy memories. Maybe she’s right! Maybe I do need to ask myself if my belongings bring me joy. They don’t bring much joy in their current chaotic state, I know that for sure!

I have no expectations that my finished, decluttered and well organized closet will ever be a picture of beauty featured in a magazine. I mainly need to be able to reach the rods to hang my clothes up and not feel like I need a treasure map when I go to look for that one item I need! I don’t want to feel like I need to keep the door closed because I can’t handle the sight of the mess. Down the road I may make a few more investments in prettier bins or baskets, but for the time being, buying Shoe Slotz and velvet hangers has been quite the splurge!

With our busy schedule, it’s been hard for me to dedicate much time to removing the junk. My major successes thus far have been changing out the hangers from plastic to velvet and packing up 4 boxes of stuff to donate to a local charity. And let’s be honest – a few years ago I coined the term MPADD – Mid Project Attention Deficit Disorder! I definitely am suffering from MPADD when it comes to this closet. The process feels more like cleaning than organizing and there’s SO MUCH STUFF! I really thought I would be able to complete most of this project in February. It’s now March and I’m hoping I can get it done by the end of this month!

Follow along as I attempt to Calm my Closet Chaos!