Monday, January 23, 2012

De-cluttering my space-challenged wardrobe

Tonight I have nothing better to do so I decided to de-clutter my wardrobe and make room for new clothes (heh, my new year resolution is to buy nice clothes that I will feel confident in my own skin!).

I started the de-cluttering process at 8pm. At first I wanted to change the shelving system by moving the lower shelf to above the hanging rod. But my ever so helpful hubby told me that the cupboard is not designed to be flexible.

Immediately I hate my cupboard. Baru nak berangan2 ada wardrobe macam dalam katalog IKEA. Ces.

Anyway I had to work around the same look but I lowered the shelf to just above the bottom box where I store our kain batik and pelikat. I'll probably nail the shelf tomorrow when we can do noisy work (night-time is a no-no).

I racked my brain and godek2 the Internet to find some inspirations as to how to fully maximize my very small cupboard to store our clothes.

To my irritation, when I googled 'how to organise clothes in small cupboard' the images that appeared are wardrobe that are not small at all, they can even hold a few shelves of shoes! Hmmph. I guess the Western people's idea of small is not that small. Spacious to them is a walk-in wardrobe or closet after all!

So yeah, i was on my own to create a tidy, organized and highly functional wardrobe out of such a confined space.

The first thing I did was to take out all the clothes and separate them according to 'daily use', 'work wear', and 'cannot use anymore'. The latter is then further filtered into two categories - 'torn/yellowed/broken zip' and 'can't fit anymore but can still wear'. I then decided that I could make some money by selling the expensive pre-loved and not fit clothes anymore later.

Once I've sorted out the clothes, I chose which clothes to keep folded on racks and which to hang. Basically those that are hung are jackets, trousers, coats, robe, and baju Melayu/kurung, while daily wear like blouses and work wear shirts are folded and kept on racks.

My biggest headache when it comes to messy cupboard are t-shirts. They are worn on daily basis, and therefore cannot be stacked folded because they'll end up coming undone when we pull them out. Knowing my dear hubby the type that can't be bothered to keep the cupboard in pristine conditions, I had to find a solution to store then in such a way that won't create a mess when we need to take one.

I had the 'a-hah!' moment when I remembered that we had a shelving organizer bought from IKEA we hardly used now that we had moved into new house. Previously I kept our little stuffs like socks and undies in the organiser but it was usually under-

I tied the organiser to the rod, rolled the t-shirts and slot them into the small shelf according to colours. When I was done, I beamed at my own work.

Don't they just look lovely and tidy?

Same goes for the bath towels. Initially I plan to keep the towels in the bathroom cabinet once it is installed. But since our bathroom is still in progress, I just stack them vertically in the box so it can easily be pulled out when we want one without messing the others.

The de-cluttering process ended at 12am. Phew! But overall I'm happy with the result. It just goes to show that even with limited space,I can still have a pretty organised cupboard.

I've also made up my mind with each new item I purchase, I'll take out one item that I hardly use so I won't end up hoarding stuffs that will end up overcrowding my wardrobe.

Now I can stock up on new clothes. Hurray! If only I have tonnes of money to buy clothes right now in the midst of home renovation! :P