Organizing Your Master Bedroom!

I lived in chaos for years.  I would clean out my closet, but never really toss things that clearly should be tossed.  The old saying of  "if you haven't worn it in a year, toss it", could not be truer.  I just couldn't let go of some of the clothing.  There were a lot of what if's involved in that decision.  My dresser drawers were the same.  Some worse than others, but clearly not organized.  I think hub had more junk drawers than actual clothes items in his side of the dresser.  We have a triple dresser, an armoire, and 2 side tables with drawers next to our bed.  Certainly enough room to take care of what we had.  It was just unorganized.  A MESS.  I cleaned out his junk drawers and tossed and tossed and tossed...of course I did this while he was at work.  I'm smart like that.  I totally recommend that!

The closet was the first thing to tackle.  When my son moved out, I took over his closet with all of my clothes and left hub with our master closet.  What was I thinking?  Seriously?!  Even though my son's closet was long and seemed to hold more clothes...you couldn't see them!  The walk in was a much better choice.  I thought about making the move for years, literally.  Isn't cleaning out a closet a huge hassle?  It was keeping me awake at night and when that starts happening, it's a job that has to be done.  I took a Saturday and with hub thrilled beyond belief, I began totally emptying out 2 closets.  I knew I was in the mood to get rid of some clothes that were long out of style.  What were my expectations of this massive overhaul?

1.  To move MY clothes back into the master bedroom.
2.  All winter clothing would end up in the guest bedroom closet.
3.  Hubs T-shirts and my sleeveless tops would come off of hangers (this would clearly free up even more space) and be folded.

I wish I had some before pics.  I would probably be embarrassed to even allow you to see the mess, but the after pics would make up for it.  Here's what the inside of the closets look like today.

My summer shirts on my side of the closet.  Next to my shirts I hung one of those over the rack organizers for my sleeveless shirts.  It's not the best...but for now until I find something a bit more stronger, it'll have to do.

Here's hub side of the closet.  Nothing but shirts in this closet. We have a system that when you take a shirt off the hanger, you do not put the hanger BACK into the clothes. I have a place for them and it's so easy when I'm doing laundry to just do a "drive by" and collect the hangers all at once.  I hate going through clothes looking for hangers!!  I'm also trying to get rid of all my wire hangers.  No wire hangers in this closet.  Winter clothes closet is another thing.  Goodwill has plastic hangers all the time!!

This is the top of the armoire in the bedroom.  It used to be crammed full.  Hubs jeans and tee shirts ended up here.  I still have to go behind him and straighten this up, but it's not nearly as overwhelming as it once was.  We tossed out so many pairs of jeans...he is down to the bare minimum now.  There are several drawers in the armoire that I rarely even opened.  Why?  Because of my jeans, shorts, capri's and whatever else I could fit in there.  I totally cleaned this out by season with my jeans and was even able to sort by color.  A bit extreme, but I had the room to do it.  It's so easy now to know what I have and exactly where it all is.

The top of our closet space was a whole different story.  DISASTER.  Even though I had containers, they were overflowing with stuff.  I headed to Big Lots to get larger containers to hold the "stuff" that was dear to me.  I have always saved cards, notes and anything special from my parents and children.  I've saved Hannah's stuff as well.  There were 3 small containers overflowing with these type items, so larger containers were necessary.  This is my hoarding treat.  I can't let go.  I know that one day I'll enjoy looking over some of the memories.  Hannah will take her container down every now and then and enjoys it so much.  She looks through every card and letter.  One day when she leaves home, I will give her the container and hopefully she will carry on this tradition.  You'll be surprised what little note to "mom" on a scratch piece of paper means in 10 years to you.  Yeah...I'm sentimental like that.  *sniff*   There was also a need for other containers.  I was able to find these green baskets at Goodwill.  I've labeled them and they contain books for one and the other were items like camera cases and such.  I don't even have to pull them down to see what is in them.  It's labeled for me!

 This decorative box holds all of Hannah's art work and special things over the years from school. 

I put a couple of these up inside the closet.  This one is for the purse's that I'm using now and for hub's belts.  I also have one on the other side of the closet that use to hold my jewelry.  It's there empty now and it's sort of a catch all now to keep items off the floor of the closet.

WHAT?  Don't even say a word!!  I did toss some shoes out.  Somehow, this shoe thing has gotten out of hand and yes, hub got one shelf I think.  I've had the storage containers and it was nice to go through them and see what I had.  This shelf was bought at Walmart years ago and it has been great.  The shoes have a home!  The over the door  shoe hanger is necessary.  It just is.

Hannah's hair accessories were the next thing.  I  allowed her to go through and toss out the bows, head bands and everything else she felt she would never use again.  I had a corner shelf in the closet and placed baskets on each shelf to hold "her stuff".

All of these baskets were found at Goodwill.  There's still some purging that needs to be done, but for Hannah...this was round 1!  I was happy with what was left.  Round 2 we'll purge some more.  Sometimes you just have to take baby steps with this purging thing!

The guest bedroom closet was the next thing.  It holds a lot of stuff!  But...look!  You can't see half of it and this was my problem when my clothes were in here.  I tended to snatch out  what was on these front racks.  I ended up wearing the same thing all the time.  HATED IT!  It now holds all of hubs winter clothes along with mine. I don't need to see that stuff in the Spring and Summer!

I purchased these 2 shelves from Walmart some time ago.  All of my purses are here.  I know.  Not a word.

Apparently, the shelves were not enough to hold my purses.  What?  I DID so purge them!!  This blue container that I had, sits between the 2 shelves and holds purses that I rarely use.  This was my round one on purging the purses!!  Give me a break!

These 2 containers hold my Christmas items I have picked up all year from Goodwill, thrift stores and end of the season sales.  I found some real deals in Nashville while I was there and since my Christmas is packed up in an outside building, this just seemed to be the logical thing to do.  That way I know exactly where the overflow is inside the house and I don't have to look through closets finding all of this!  Yes, it's hard to read but it's labeled "Christmas".  Just in case I die...someone will find it, right?

So...the closets were a major all day long ordeal.  I feel so much better!  I've got a few drawers to share with you that were organized as well.  I found these organizing tools at Goodwill.  You knew that, right?

 Everything is nice and neatly organized.  The sock organizer can be found at Big Lots for just $5.  I found it at Goodwill brand new in the box for $2.  Cha-Ching!  I also found the other drawer containers at Goodwill.  I'm a happy camper with these drawers!

Last but not least is hubs JUNK DRAWER.  I really narrowed it down to this one drawer.  I tossed so much stuff out.  He hasn't missed anything, so it's all good.

I grabbed some containers I had in my plastic ware that I'll never use just because of the size of them.  Why do they do that anyway?  They fit nicely in this junk drawer and keep things from being randomly all over the place.  Every man needs a wooden stick and a couple of knives and a huge lighter  in "their" drawer right?  *eye roll*

Well there you have it!  An organized Master Bedroom Closet, Guest Bedroom Closet and all the drawers cleaned out nicely.  You just have to make up your mind to let go of the stuff.  You know what you haven't worn in forever...and if you ever do get back into those jeans...GIRL...they are OUT OF STYLE now!!  Give yourself a break and get rid of the clutter.

Hannah's closet is pretty organized...for her.  She is headed to Hoarder Land one day if she doesn't let go of some of that junk.  It's certainly a work in process, but I can deal with her closet now.  It's actually been updated since this pic.  That was Purge 2.  Slowly but surely we'll get there.

I hope you caught the bug!  You just have to take the time to keep things organized.  It's for sure not a pleasant task to take on, but get your family involved.  With Hannah...I have to take baby steps.  She can not let anything go.  I always do a sort pile for her....keep, toss and donate.  There's rarely anything in the toss pile, because her stuff is way to valuable (she thinks) to actually TOSS.  The donate pile...well that's another issue.  Why should she donate something she still wants?  We have a process that we do an initial clean out and then I begin to wear her down.  We go back over all the piles and eventually she is so exhausted she caves and we are tossing and donating.  She's teary...but in the I DON'T CARE ANYMORE mode.  That's a good thing for me!!

Happy organizing...and if you're lucky enough to have one of those container stores around you...I'm sure that I would have seizures just going in there.  Check it out for me!  Goodwill for now is doing it's job to keep me container happy!  Now get going!!


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