Going Minimal: Step 1 Minimalist Closet

A minimalist closet doesn’t sound like a dream?  Wait, let me show you how easy it can be.

Confession:  We only went to the beach about five times over the summer.  I know.  We live on an island people flock to over the summer for a beach vacation…and we only went about five times.  Why?  After some reflection, I believe it was because I was too busy taking care of stuff.

You know, laundry, dishes, cars, food, and everything else.

Confession:  I was counting the days to pay days over the summer because it seemed like my bank account kept running low.  Why?  I took the kids out to eat too much.  No, not because I thought it was a fun thing to do…because I was always running short on time for cooking and grocery shopping.  Again, the main culprit?  Working on organizing and going through our stuff.

Our stuff robbed us of our summer vacation.

In general, life has become unbalanced.

I do what I call the daily stuff shuffle.  Do you do this dance?  Take stuff from one place and organize it into another space.  Then, some other stuff is displaced so it has to go somewhere and before you know it you’ve moved everything around your house and you haven’t solved any problems.

While our house was being built we lived in a cute little cottage downtown that came fully furnished.  It was a vacation rental and we moved in with our suitcases, Luke’s crib (he was a baby then), and a box of toys.  So easy,

We all look back at those months as some of our favorite months because we were free.  Free from the stuff.  Free from organizing, dusting, and shopping for our stuff.  Instead, we took walks downtown for ice cream.  We sat out on the porch in the hammock in the evening visiting.  We took walks on the beach and met friends for drinks.  I did all the laundry Saturday morning and cleaned up the cottage in a just a few hours and we were free for the rest of the weekend.

It was such a simple and easy way to live.  I almost wanted to just stay there.

So…I want to recapture that and since it seems like mom sets the tone for the lifestyle in this house…I’m going all in.  I believe you can have a beautiful home while living a minimalist lifestyle.

It’s going to be a gradual process so I don’t send anyone into major shock around here.  I started with my closet.  I went minimal a few weeks ago if you saw my Instagram feed and I’m going to show you how easy it is to go to a minimal closet.

Let’s get started.

Step 1:  Take everything out of your closet.  I mean everything.  I wish I had a picture of this but I just did it on my Instagram stories and didn’t keep a picture of it.  Ugh.  I’ll just say it was embarrassing.  Way too much stuff.  I literally had thousands of dollars in clothing sitting on my bed.

Step 2:  Put everything on your bed in piles of like things.  I did a pile of pants, a pile of skirts, a pile of jeans, a pile of blouses etc….

Step 3:  Try on and sort.  I tried on each piece and put it in one of three piles…Keep, Donate, Consign.  If you are torn between keeping something or not, you can make a box of stuff that you are thinking about.  When we get to building your wardrobe you may dip back into this box.  I also set some limits on myself like only one pair of black pants, one white tee etc…

This step is probably the most difficult because it is so hard to let go of things you spent hard earned money on.  I just decided I wanted simplicity, peace, and a wardrobe that worked for me more than I wanted to hold onto something because it cost me money.  Sometimes you just have to let go.

Step 4:  Start building your new wardrobe.

We’ll pick up with step 4 next Tuesday. You can see the next step by clicking HERE.  I’ll share how easy it was to put together my 30 piece wardrobe and why it is saving me tons of time.  I’ll share my inspiration photo with you.  The photo that got the whole ball rolling.

So, are you in?  Are you going to try a minimal wardrobe?  If so, sort this weekend and we’ll pick back up on Tuesday to take it across the finish line.