Decluttering: End of the Closet Purge Project

These represented my final project completed, and one (heirloom) dresser emptied!

A little backstory.  I guess I've talked about my closet purge project for awhile now.  The need for it started back when I was a friendless high school freshman.  My mom would give me $5 for lunch.  It was a fair amount of money to get a balanced, nutritious meal.  However, I would take $4 of that and save it up.  I would spend $1 of that on a cup o' noodles and a can of Hawaiian Punch.  It's amazing I made it out of high school as relatively healthy as I did.  Yikes.

I spent that remaining $4 on something cute at the thrift store.  I'd save it up and go on a Friday, sometimes.  The thrift store was my happy place, where all the clothes were my friends.  I later made friends who either understood my thrifting obsession or even "got it" and showed me tips and tricks!

This all translated into an overloaded closet, bedroom, and eventually boxes in the garage (when I lived at home).  My canopy bed served as an extra closet rack.  My poor closet with the 40 year-old wooden rod crashed down in the middle of the night.  I bought an extra (cute) wardrobe at Ikea to house more clothing.  It was a disease that could not be stopped.

All these clothes bought me joy.  Some weren't even my style, but were what I wanted to "be" like.  Some I bought because they were funny, others because they were cool or rare or vintage.  Most I never wore more than once.  If you think of how much money I spent over the span of twenty years (1996-2016), I could have taken some cool trips!

My poor mom!  How did she put up with this.  Only a mother could!

In 2010, when I started to move out, my mom jumped for joy at the thought of finally getting back a good portion of her garage!  I had to figure out what to do with all the crap clothes.  Storage for awhile.  Going through some for awhile.  Keeping some at my parents' for awhile (until they retired up north and said they weren't going to move my crap) (fair enough).

2011-2013 was going through all this stuff in earnest.  And the more I went through, the more I realized how little I actually wore and enjoyed. 

2014-2015 was my purge in earnest, and the discovery of "capsule wardrobes," less consumerism, and the like.

The last year or so has been my purge project in addition to our goal of downsizing.  We are hoping to move into a smaller house.  We currently have a large tract home (renting) and want to move into a smaller home that is more efficient, with less material possessions.  So, with that earnest goal in mind, the past year has been spent preparing for life in a house that was built before people had disposable fashion.  They made their own clothes and repaired items, and had quality, not quantity.

In addition to this goal and the "capsule wardrobe" movement, Kondo wrote her awesome book about Tidying Up.  I scanned it and loved what I saw.  It made perfect sense.  I'm loving the whole waste not want not, downsizing, mentality.  It frees you up for more important things.

I also found it helped to find someone who needed help moving, but had way too much stuff...  That will inspire you to get rid of your own stuff so you don't have to move it when the time comes.  In addition, what really helped for me was taking pictures of "cute" things I was getting rid of but didn't really jive with my style.  Then you have the picture.  Release the item!

Once I got rid of this, then some more bags, then that, and then another bag....  I figured why stop there?  And I made it my goal to get rid of a dresser.  That was a fun project that culminated with the two drawers you see, above.  I used to have a drawer each for:  stockings/tights, undies/bras, socks, slips, workout gear, woolens...  I combined those so they took up half the space, and this meant that finally I could get rid of my tall dresser.

The dresser is something my grandpa made by hand.  He was a hobbyist carpenter, back from a time when people had lots of talents, and he had many gifts.  I didn't get rid of it.  My mom is "holding" the dresser until either of us can find room for it.  It currently resides in her garage and my dad will probably use it for storage of some sort. 

It feels great being that much lighter, having that much less stuff.  And surprisingly, or not very, getting dressed in the morning is super easy.  I only have stuff I use!

Make Money with Dumpster Diving and the Law of Thrift

Some dumpsters would require PPE, don't you think?

I just read a wonderful article in Wired, which you can find here.  It's about a guy who has been driving around Austin, dumpster diving.  And he finds all sorts of brand new items!  He started dumpster diving as part of his job as a security consultant (to show where a company had vulnerabilities with information leakage).  He is picky as far as which dumpsters he goes to.  Probably not restaurant dumpsters...  Definitely dumpsters at Best Buy, Harbor Freight, and the like.  Many times, he finds brand new items, discarded by employees.

Is this something we would have seen fifty years ago?  Our culture now is so fixated on everything being disposable, and the need to consume new things and newer things.  Planned obsolescence.  There is an interesting quote:

"Prosperity was becoming a kind of secular religion, and its visionary torchbearer was J. Gordon Lippincott. Today, Lippincott is remembered mainly as the father of corporate branding, the engineer-cum-marketer who created the Campbell’s Soup label and the Coca-Cola logo. He was also, however, the high priest of planned obsolescence. 'Our willingness to part with something before it is completely worn out is a phenomenon noticeable in no other society in history,' he wrote. The phenomenon 'is soundly based on our economy of abundance. It must be further nurtured even though it is contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity—the law of thrift.'"

Woah.

That just blew my mind.

One of the things that bothers me the most about modern technology is also one of the things I like best.  We have these tiny computers we carry around, that can make calls, surf the internet, set alarms, and even map where I hike via GPS.  This smartphone did not come cheap.  Yet one drop off the kitchen counter and the screen is smashed to smithereens.  One year later and the model is obsolete because of a new version.  Time to dispose of--not repair--the phone.

Yet in this culture where we love to throw away things (and someone else can deal with it, magically), people are throwing away brand-new items that the gentleman profiled in the article above can re-sell.  If there is a need for an item, why is it being tossed?

I love capitalism (YAY CAPITALISM!).  But, as you can see by Lippincott's quote, and I do agree with him--consumerism, and planned obsolescence, is in fact contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity--the law of thrift.

Let's return to the law of thrift!

For all the new trends that arise--wanting to get back to "natural" parenting because that's the way it has been done for thousands of years, for instance...  Let's make returning to our natural law of thrift a priority as well!

As I have been saying for several posts now, reduce, reuse, recycle...  In all aspects of your home.  Maybe one day, dumpsters will have a service involved that strives to actually keep items out of landfills, and not rely on Freecycle or dumpster divers.  Sure, grassroots is great--but perhaps if anti-waste legislation was implemented, we would see our landfills be less, um, filled.

And, as for planned obsolescence:  Let's overcome it.  I see it in fashion all the time.  Those skinny jeans are SO five seasons ago.  Please try wide leg.  Please try flare.  Oh wait, those flares are SO three seasons ago.  Please try skinny.  And so on.  Less waste and more thrift is what we need to return to.  We can have technology without waste; I know it is possible.

Decluttering: Blue Jean Baby

RIP the jeans tower

For those poor souls aka my friends who have had to move me to various apartments and locations throughout Fremont and Newark, this might seem like too little too late.  Not only do I have 8 instead of fifty coats (this will be in another post), but now I have a fraction of the jeans I had before.

"Um, you still have like fifteen pairs of jeans," you may be saying.  Or, as my husband put it, "You now have a normal human amount of jeans.  It's still too much, but at least it's not crazy-hoarder levels."

People in the know also may remember the above jeans tower.  Well, as of last night, it is no more.  I now have a normal enough amount of jeans to actually fit in my closet.  Imagine that!  This means easier to access outfits, and it means less crap in my room.  More space in our oddly designed master bedroom is always a good thing.

The only bad thing is that halving my jeans collection meant I thought I could get RICH by reselling these jeans to something like Crossroads Trading!  But no such luck.  They didn't want any of my Seven for all Mankind jeans I paid $$$ for.  They did, however, take one pair of random Levi's that I got at like Kohl's or something ten years ago.  Hm.  Lesson learned.  I could sell the rest on eBay or Etsy but I think I will take 'em to Thrift Town.  :-)  Sometimes a lighter house and car is worth more than money.

Oh, and what did I keep?  Vintage.  Levi's.  Classic designs.  No bells and whistles.  I still have several pairs of designer jeans (Paper Denim Cloth, James, Earnest Sewn...), which I got on sale at various places.  But they are just basic classic jeans.  I'm currently reading Cheap Chic, an awesome style guide published in the mid-70's.  Even back then, they said to avoid crazy pockets, zippers, pulls, and embellishments.  Guess what?  They NEVER age well.  So long, blingy Seven jeans with the bedazzled butt.  Might have been the look I was going for in 2007, but it is not exactly a la mode or classic.

Added bonus:  having all my clothes easy to access, in one location, and organized means picking an outfit is not only easy but fun, and quick.  Getting rid of "white noise" clothing has made the house so much more appealing to hang out in.  No longer working off the top of the wardrobe, and letting those wardrobe items I wasn't using, be enjoyed by someone else, is definitely a wonderful thing.

Decluttering: Our Addiction to Cheap Fashion

via

I ran across this book while listening to an old podcast from Stuff Mom Never Told You (one of my fave podcasts).  It is now on my reading list, for sure.  If you get a chance, check out the podcast I linked to, as well.

All this talk about decluttering, and what is the root cause?  Shopping!  And why do we shop?  Because How can we afford not to.  We shop when we're bored, we shop when we're on vacation, we shop when we're socializing with friends.  We buy stuff because it's on sale, it's pretty, it's fun, it might add something, if not to our lives, well, to our afternoon.

The statistics in the podcast are a bit frightening.  Women dispose of many times more clothes than men do.  Because women, like, love shopping!  When you take clothes to the thrift store (as I love to do), not all of them are given to the needy, or sold to fellow thrifters.  Some are recycled into rags (those weird pink rags you see at the auto parts store).  Some are shipped off to Sub-Saharan Africa.  Well, several billions of TONS are shipped off...  And let's not mention how much STILL winds up in landfills.  And, do those in Sub-Saharan Africa actually need our clothes?  Not especially, and there is evidence it is negatively impacting their culture and livelihood.

What can we do, as consumerists?  Consume less.  I am not innocent.  I was a shopaholic for several years, and only in the past four or five years have I stopped, but I had amassed a buttload (to use a technical term) of clothes, shoes, and bags.  Plus, everyone knew I was basically someone who would take any clothes, so people gave me their old clothes.  AND, my grandmother was a clothes horse as well, so I got all her old clothing too.  As an aside, she had excellent taste, and I still wear, and kept most, of her clothing, including vintage Pendleton.  They just don't make things like they used to.

But I digress.

We just really don't need as many clothes as we think we do.  When statistics fly around that women wear 20% of their clothing 80% of the time, you know something needs to change.  It's not entirely our fault.  We are being market to, just as we are marketed to about everything.  Every year, we need new things.  Every season, we need new things.  Even in California, where there really are no seasons!

I am trying to make amends for my former shopaholic ways.  I have gotten rid of many clothes, trying to as responsibly as I can, but some were taken to my trusty local thrift store, which claims on their signs that the clothing or money from it goes to help local charities--this is really tops in my book, and not the worst thing you can do--definitely better than trashing it in a landfill.  Others, I have taken to consignment stores like Crossroads.  My friends don't want any, which refutes the suggestion in the podcast that the only responsible way to get rid of clothes is through a clothing swap.  That assumes that you and your friends are clones who all have the same style.

Here are my suggestions:

• Don't shop.  If you need something, think before you buy.
• This means, is there something you own that can already work for the item?
• If you have a shirt that is torn, or jacket that needs mending, don't just chuck it, but try to repair it.
• The mantra should be: repair, replace, recycle.  Upcycle.  Just don't toss.  And don't treat your clothing as disposable in the first place.
• Approaching shopping in a mindful way means less waste.  Less waste means a better economy for our country and world, and it means a better environment, too.
• Shop responsibly.  This doesn't always mean Made in USA, but many times it does.
• Be the non-consumer--buy from consignment and thrift stores.  You can find some clothes still with their tags on!  This means that people bought the garment, never wore it, and then got rid of it.  Or were given the garment from a well-meaning but clueless friend.  Not a good thing.
• Some retailers like Patagonia have programs in place to repair old items of theirs, to keep them out of landfills.  Similarly, such companies often try to make sure their factories have as little impact on the environment as possible.  You won't believe how much water these places use!
• The book I mentioned above, Overdressed, has a handy shopping directory at its site, to guide you to some places that are a bit more responsible than Forever 21.
• Listen, Forever 21 is one of my most favorite stores to shop at.  Fast Fashion is Fun!  But, the cost involved in the creation and eventual disposal of it makes that supposedly expensive $200 blouse that is "slow fashion" look like a steal.
• Google "Made in USA" or "sustainable clothing" for more ideas.

I recently watched an early Hitchcock film, called Young and Innocent.  Besides the fact that the lead actress had the coolest name ever (Nova Pilbeam!) and that I had no idea who any of the stars were, and besides the fact that while I love 30's movies and am interested to see how Hitchcock found his style, what I really noticed was the clothes.  They were cut so beautifully.  Of course, duh, you say.  It's a movie.  But, I will counter that everyone wore the same costume for the entire movie (all 83 minutes of it).  People owned less clothes, but the quality was miles better.  Clothes weren't disposable.  Things in general were less disposable.  I am hoping our generation moves back toward less a disposable society, for the sake of our future and environment.

Decluttering the Spare Room

Wow, isn't that a lovely picture?  Don't you love clutter?  I know I do.

Said no one, ever!

Except maybe hoarders.

I'm not a hoarder.  But maybe I was at some point.  The above picture was about the worst our spare room looked.  This is when I first moved in with my now-husband, from my apartment.  I just had the movers (aka my friends) throw boxes in this room to get them out of the way.  But it may have stayed cluttered for more time than I care to admit.  Even if the clutter got shuffled around, there was still stuff that I didn't really need taking up space in a more or less unusable room.

The years went by (well just a couple years), and the spare room got organized, but was still full of clutter and not really usable.  It also became a catchall for other clutter in the house.  Every time we needed to clear spaces because of a party, all the junk got thrown in this room, and the door closed.  Every time someone gave me something I didn't want to deal with or find a place for yet, it got thrown in here.

While I did get pretty good at contortioning myself in an ungraceful version of some movie star playing a spy and getting through those laser maze thingies, I was tired of having this junk room.  Compound that with people who were comfortable enough to poke fun at it, leading me to silently ask them why they never invited me to THEIR house??  But I digress.

I did end up doing a version of the "clear it all out and evaluate" technique I mentioned yesterday.  I cleared it all out to the living room, except for the closet (which would wait for another day--I'm not insane, mind you).  It took me a sixteen hour day (I'm not joking), working non-stop and almost throwing out my back to go through all the junk. 

I do have some awesome things, and I did keep them.  But now they are actually easy to find and access.  I know where all my stuff is.  I did keep some mementos, too.  But, I suggest you define the word "memento"--or it can easily turn into JUNK.  Mementos shouldn't really take up more than a box. 

The main rule, the golden rule of decluttering is this series of questions (a quick google search yields neat articles like this):

- Do I use this?  (Additionally, if you haven't used it in a year, why is it in your home?)

- Does this bring me joy?

- Does this add beauty to my surroundings?

Once you answer these, you get a better idea with how much actual junk is sitting around just taking up space in your house.  It impedes energy flow, it impedes your movement in your house...  It's just no bueno.

This article also suggests to digitize nostalgia.  This was a HUGE boon for me.  Just take a pic on my smartphone of those awesome shoes I never wear but like to look at, or that coat that has an awesome lining, or that memento from that one awesome trip to wherever.  Maybe some things that bring you joy but are not useful and don't add beauty to your surroundings...  Maybe they would be best kept only in digital form.

The trend toward paring down is gaining steam.  Hopefully I'm not bombarding you with information and links, but here is another one.

Here is a nice write-up about a book you can peruse at Amazon or your local bookstore.  It has some good common sense.  You do want to have a super awesome and clean house that has a really chic Japanese vibe to it, right?

I'll give you a moment to cruise those links.  Done?  Found more links?  Awesome.  Getting inspired?  Where do you start?

I started with this one room.  Just with the boxes in the room, full of stuff I had no idea I owned.  In that sixteen hour day that I believe also made me catch a cold (seriously, this is hard work but worth it), I got TWO CARLOADS of bags of things to donate to my local thrift store (Thrift Town, woohoo!).  The house actually felt lighter.  In the end, that meant I could actually walk into the room and use it as a room. 

Another weekend day was spent whittling down the clutter that rested along the walls (LOTS of stationery) yielded several more bags.  Also, I filled up our empty recycling bin twice--so much stuff I had been hauling around!

Once the bags were out of the house, and the house itself (then car) felt lighter, I could focus on the next step (and the next step--it's addicting!).  I'm in the midst of a clothing declutter, which will be in another post.  Some advice says to start with clothing, but I had been doing that slowly all along.  Clearing out that spare room motivated me to really pare down my clothing.  As I said, I used to be a shopaholic.  Now I have, I just counted, eight purses total.  And one duffel bag for traveling.  I could have less if I wanted--three are in the current rotation.

Lastly, one final thought for you.  You could take it ALL to the thrift store, which is an awesome idea.  Maybe you have something worth a lot, but it's nice to just leave it there for someone to discover.  Or, you can go to eBay or the like and see if what you have is really worth a lot.  Then you have to decide if the effort to sell it is worth your time or not.  I have had luck with places like Crossroads to buy back some of my clothing, but sometimes they don't need what you have.  You decide what to do, but the end goal should be a lighter house, and not being owned by your things.

One final, final point.  When my husband and I were looking for homes to buy in the past few years (the market is too crazy now to do much besides save more money), we felt that we couldn't have smaller than a 3 and 2 because we had so much stuff.  Talk about being owned by our stuff!  How much stuff do you really need, two people who sleep in the same room??  My husband was raised in a 2 and 1 cottage, with his parents and brother.  The fact that half the people need twice the space is ridiculous.  So, give me some more of those garbage bags to fill (and show me the listings for cottages).

The Struggle: Decluttering

We all have problems, at various levels, with controlling clutter that enters our house.  I think there are a few problems that make life as a middle-class American especially cluttered.  I want to talk about this here and there on this blog as I myself struggle to declutter our house and not be owned by our things.

The first problem is that shopping is a pastime in this country.  People shop on vacation for souvenirs, people shop for gifts for every occasion (whether the item is meaningful or needed, or not), people shop with their friends as a way to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon.  People shop because they're bored.  They shop because there is a sale they couldn't pass up (how could you afford not to?).  People put stuff on credit because they just had to have it.

I have one word for this:

NO!  STOP!

Okay, that's two words.

I speak from the standpoint of someone who used to be a shopaholic.  But what is a shopaholic?  I was able to quit cold turkey a few years ago, and I definitely did not develop the shakes or the sweats.  I did notice something growing exponentially:  my bank account!  Imagine that.  When you spend less money, you are able to save more money.

Over the past few years, I have decided to not be owned by my stuff.  At first, this meant just not buying new stuff.  Maybe this even meant allowing things like shoes and coats to show some wear before buying new ones.  However, I didn't get rid of the things I had already purchased.

As an aside, let me tell you that when I stopped being a shopaholic, I also went through some moves.  I moved out of my parents' house and into my friend's house to rent a room.  I moved out of there and into my other friend's condo that she was selling.  Then out of there (all the while some things being stuck in storage) and into my own one bedroom apartment (and out of the storage unit too).  And the best one:  out of my one bedroom and into a two bedroom just across the complex, as my brother moved in with me.  This involved walking my belongings across the parking lot, from one second-story unit to another.  Finally, I moved all my items in with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and his brother.  All the while, my long-suffering friends had to move pounds and pounds of JUNK.  Sorry guys.

Now, let me introduce you to my new addiction:  I am addicted to getting rid of stuff!  I decided I want to live a more clean life.  I guess in current terminology, I want to be more MINDFUL.  But I think that word has become so clichéd as to lose its meaning.  So, let's just say I want to not be wasteful in anything I do.  I will go into my individual processes in subsequent posts, and believe me, it's a process.  But I want to leave you with a good tip I just ran across today over on the blog Seventeenth & Irving:  to clean out your bedroom, take everything out of the room except your actual bed and sheets and blanket, two nightstands, and their respective lamps.  Then only put back the stuff you really need.  Read more at the link for more information.

I guess the moral of the story for now is, we actually need a lot less STUFF than we think we do.  Stay tuned for more posts as I continue on my decluttering journey.