Closets 101 (you've heard this from me before!)

Learn How to Purge Closets Sensibly

By Katherine Salant, Washington PostSaturday, August 15, 2009

In many cases, the desire to move to a bigger house is driven by the need to "get my life under control."
The thinking goes something like this: In a bigger house I will have more places to put things and bigger closets so my house will not be awash in clutter anymore.
But bigger closets can be both a blessing and a curse, said Sandra Felton, founder of Messies Anonymous (http://www.messies.com), author of seven books on how to create order from household chaos, and a person who learned to keep order in her own house after struggling with chaos for more than 23 years.
The problem with the bigger closet solution, Felton said, is that many people regard their bigger closet as an "ever expanding universe" and keep on accumulating things until the new closet becomes as crammed as their old one.
Even worse, the scale of disorder in a bigger closet can often become a heavier burden than it was with the smaller one, Felton said. When a 10- to 15-foot-long walk-in closet (not an unusual size in houses built in the last 20 years) is filled, "you've created your own boutique," Felton said. You can feel like you're managing a store or a warehouse without the benefit of a modern inventory system. You can't remember what you own, or you can't find it, and you end up with multiple and nearly identical clothing items, shoes and accessories.
A more adaptive strategy if you're striving for order, and one that could ultimately lead you to stay where you are, Felton said, is a "steady state approach" -- a recognition that the closet size is finite and that when you acquire new things you need to remove some old ones.
It sounds easy enough, add a new thing, subtract an old thing, but many people find the subtraction aspect paralyzing and decisions on what to keep and what to discard impossible, Felton said.
To this, Feldon says simply, "you have to be a grown up and ask yourself a few simple questions: Do I use it? Is it more important than other things that will also take up space? Is it important that I have it?" She says the decision-making process gets easier with practice; it's also easier with smaller closets that limit what you can accumulate.
In her own 1950s Miami ranch, the closets are only 39 inches long. She uses two closets for her clothes, and this keeps her decisions regarding her wardrobe to "manageable numbers," she said.
It's tempting to wait until you can't fit anything more into your closet to decide what should go, but this can leave you feeling pressured and making choices you later regret, Felton said. She's found she's more comfortable with a "de-access as you go" approach, and she removes a garment as soon as she's ready to part with it. To keep herself from revisiting her decision, the garment goes in a "charity box" on the other side of her house and, in short order, to a local charity.
But Felton acknowledges that the disposition answers do not come easily in every instance, and she says you don't have to give every old garment away as you acquire new ones.
Many things have special sentimental value because they are "memory holders" that give us a sense of who we are, Felton said. We need to keep these pieces of our personal history, but we don't have to have them immediately accessible. They can be archived and stored elsewhere in your house. In describing the kinds of priceless and unique things that people keep, she mentioned her father's college diploma. But, she emphasized, you don't have to keep everything a person ever gave to you to honor their memory.
Felton also emphasized that many people need time to get comfortable with giving away things of a personal nature. While some people "can do it without feeling a twinge," most people become upset if these things are "jerked out of their lives," she said.
And sometimes you just can't decide what to do with something.
Felton's solution to this dilemma is an "ambivalence box." It can be filled with clothes and anything else, sealed and stored in an out-of-the-way place like a basement or garage for five or six months. You'll be pleased with the closet space that the ambivalence box frees up, Felton said, and when you eventually open it, you'll discover that you feel differently about its contents. "Time dulls their sparkle and they don't look as good after a long period," she said.
Felton has done this many times over the years, and she said she can't recall ever using any of the boxed-up items again, though she's archived a few clothing items that were "beautiful in their own way, even if they weren't stylish anymore or wearable."
The idea of organizing yourself to carry out Felton's ambivalence box suggestion may seem like too much time and trouble, but an impending move can be a powerful "situational" motivation, she said.
It worked for me. When we moved to New York City for a year, I boxed up half of my clothes and stored them in our basement. When we returned, I was amazed at the clarity that time can bring. In less than an hour, I went through all the boxes and dispatched more than half of the contents to a local thrift shop.
What was in my personal time capsule that I so easily parted with?
-- Clothing that had belonged to my mother that I realized I didn't need to honor her memory.
-- Worn-out shoes that I loved and had worn on a European trip with our children.

-- Work attire that might fit someday.
-- Garage-sale items that I might wear someday.
-- Everything I hadn't worn in at least five years.
-- Worn out clothes I had kept because they were given as presents by my family.
-- Items that salespeople had convinced me were "flattering" but which I had never worn.
-- Clothes I had worn on special family occasions.