Declutter Your Master Bedroom Closet

Welcome! It’s the first week of the Declutter Your Life series.  For the next 52 weeks (1 task a week for the year), we will work together to declutter our homes, our cars, our purses, our computers and anywhere else we find clutter.  Are you ready to get started?

Each week this year, we will work on one declutter challenge.  Most of the declutter challenges will take about an hour (maybe longer depending on how much clutter you have to remove and sort and maybe less sometimes).  We are all busy moms which is why I am only doing one challenge a week.  If you should get behind or need extra time, I will be posting all the challenges together at Smart Mom Smart Ideas so you can work on them at your own pace.

I want you to declutter your home and your life this year.  Make a commitment now to complete each task each week with me.

3 Simple Declutter Rules

1. Accept you cannot keep everything and you have to let things that are not used or that are no longer useful to you go.
2. If you don’t use it,  get rid of it (i.e. you have not used in 6 months or 12 months), it’s time for it to leave your house.  (I do make an exception with clothes for myself as weight/sizes can vary).
3. When possible use baskets, tubs, cases, you already have in your house to organize.  Sometimes this repurposing will take some creative thinking (and/or moving furniture), but most of the time you don’t need to purchase more “storage” products, you just need to repurpose the storage items you have.

I decided to start the declutter process in my master bedroom.  We spend much of our time in our bedroom – sleeping, relaxing, and getting ready.  We also tend to carry lots of clutter to our bedroom (or at least I do).  I divided my master bedroom into 3 weeks – the master closet, the master bathroom and the bedroom itself.    Let’s get started on the Master closet.

How to Declutter Your Master Bedroom Closet

Start with a Basic Assessment

Take a look around your closet.  What are you keeping your closet?  What should be in your closet?  What needs to be moved or donated?  Do you have the best layout in your closet (i.e. do you have your pants/skirts together?  All your blouses and tops together)?  Are you making the best use of the space you have in your closet?

Before you start pulling out and tossing out, just take a few minutes to visualize how you would like for your closet to look when you are done.  Consider if there is a better way for you to organize your closet or share the space with your husband.

Always Start at the Beginning

When you look at your closet, you can start on the right side or you can start on the left side or at the opening of the door, but don’t start in the middle of the closet or middle of a shelf.  The goal is to follow a method in your process.  When I cleaned out my closet on Thursday, I started on the left side and worked my way to the right side.

Work your way through the entire closet.  By starting on the left or right, you will take the process step-by-step and you should handle or remove everything.  If you start in the middle, you may miss some spaces.

You may find it’s helpful to just take everything out of the closet and start over.  This is a great way to declutter to make sure you don’t miss anything in the process.

Evaluate Everything

As you go through your closet, you should touch or move everything in the closet.  As you touch it, you will decide to keep it (where it is), toss it (it’s trash), donate it (make a pile to donate) or move it another location (i.e. you find your daughters shoes in your closet, they should be moved to her closet or you find gift bags on the shelf – they should be moved to the gift wrapping closet).

If you use the item and it’s in the right place, then move to the next thing.   If it’s trash, put it in the trash bag or pile (I find the trash is usually the largest pile, I just keep too much junk).  You will also probably a large number of items that you no longer use, but could be useful to someone else.  Add these items to your donate pile.

Remember, don’t toss your husband’s stuff unless you ask him or you absolutely know for sure he doesn’t need the item or will never use it again.

Reorganize

Now that you have removed all the clutter from your closet, decide if you have everything designed or organized in the format.  Do you have your clothes organized so it’s easy to find them?  Maybe you like to have all the same color together or maybe you like all the pants together, all the blouses together (this is how I like it).

Organize your closet to work with your personality (and your husband’s).  Make your most frequently used items the most accessible.  Items you use less can be on higher shelves.

When I started my closet declutter, I hoped I would be done in about an hour.  It actually took me about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to completely clean out my closet.  I had 2 full garbage bags of trash and one bag for donations.  I also moved a cabinet that had been against the back wall of our closet (and taking up too much space) to our storage area when it belonged.

My husband was very happy with the closet declutter project.  He has mentioned several times how great it looks and how much easier it is to find things (I was able to take enough old stuff and give him more room for his stuff – he loves having more space).

Next week, we will be working on decluttering the master bathroom.

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Your turn …

Tell me about decluttering your master bedroom closet?  What did you find to be the most difficult part of the process?