I did it my waaayyyyyyy

I've always had this tendency to want to put my own swing on things: style, research papers, lesson plans...you name it! After moving into my current house, it took me a long time to get settled because of the lack of usable space in my closet. (2 hanging rods? Puh-Leaze)

I also needed drawers. Just drawers. I found that the ones that I only sort of wanted were kind of a lot of money...there was a little bit of a conflict of interest there. The story's actually outlined here. My dad thought it would've been easier for me to just get something at IKEA, but is it really wrong for me to want to buy things I want to keep?

I find that motivation is easier to come by when I have a big project that needs to be done...just kind of staring me in the face.

This was staring me in the face.

I'd never sanded before. Never stained wood. It didn't sound too difficult. Time consuming? Probably, but nothing hard.

Ta-da!

And here's what I did! Before I was thinking of doing this cool two tone design, but...then I saw the stain colors that Minwax offered and my eyes stuck on Bayou Green. I was iffy on the two tone design anyway and right now, I'm really happy with how it came out. My logic with the green was that at some point, I'd like to move this dresser out of my closet and have it display elsewhere.

It was a learning experience. Stripping paint is hard. I started off with 120 grain before slowly realizing that to strip off the paint, I had to go down to 60 grain sandpaper. Sheesh.

Anyway, finishing this allowed me to finally get my clothes in order. And after getting my dresser in the closet, I realized that I still didn't have enough closet space to accommodate the mess strewn around my room.

For some extra hanging space, I added IKEA's Portis Hat Rack to accommodate my button downs that still needed to be ironed at the time. The layout of my closet is two hanging rods on opposite sides of a long closet, that middle space wasn't being used and I found it's useless presence rather irritating.

Lots of ironing and folding later... I had a full closet. From left to right:

blazers & skirts on the rod. Sweaters, jeans, cotton trousers, and shorts on the shelf. That yellow bag is my sock bag.

Center: blouses, shirts, the dresser with foldables.

Left: dresses and dress slacks.

Small closets and me just don't get along, There are some things I just won't get rid of. I've adapted to so many closets over the past 6 years, it doesn't rub me the right way to feel I have to get rid of things here and there when I know the most of the places I've been living have always been on some kind of temporary basis.

You know what's the odd thing about closets? Even if you have an avalanche of clothes outside of your closet, having a relatively empty closet can really give you the feeling the something is lacking in your wardrobe...even if you actually have too much.

"not wanting" is the key to success

So, I'm rather irritated right now. I can't find my camera adapter cord and it's hidden somewhere in one of the many cars that happen to reside at my house in San Antonio. It's like an annoying version of the price is right. For now, I'll just make do until I can ask someone for it, after all it is 3:20am and really, I want it just to have it on me.

Anyway...

currently I'm quite content with my clothing situation, save a few side projects I need to finish. After having read Amanda Lee's article on doing more with the clothes you have, I got the final push to finish organizing my closet. I tackled my ironing, any clothes that needed to be folded and laundered. Truthfully, at some point I was afraid that even with all the new alterations (additional hanging rack, newly finished dresser, shelf for my sweaters) to my closet I still wouldn't be able to fit everything in. I seriously have a lot of clothes. After going through that ordeal, I found it kind of ridiculous to want to buy more clothes. Sure, there are a few things I still need (black button-down, black heels, black sweater) and a few things I want (turquoise pencil skirt), I'm just considerably less motivated to actively seek out and spend money on things when I have a full closet.

I've done some cool things lately

I haven't blogged in about a good 2 months. In that time, I've done a good lot:

- finished student teaching
- acquired a teaching wardrobe
- acquired a bunch of hats
- made giant mess of my apartment
- I'm graduating this Sunday. Approximately 24 hours from now.

Life is pretty grand right now and now it's a matter of cleaning up the grand mess that is my apartment.

Unfortunately, I broke my camera Halloween night. I have to take pictures the old school way through the view finder. Any pics may take longer than usual.

As a holiday present, I'll give this advice to any lucky people who happen to stumble upon it.

Approximately 3 times it has happened to me that when I order an item through Anthropologie oppose to the website, the item has gone on double sale before it has reached me. I get my item at a substantially lower price and life is nicer. Here's the pattern I've noticed when that happens. The item I want is usually on sale to begin with since it is not often that a retail item sells out mad fast. They usually don't have my size on the website and it becomes very likely that the item will just sell out. What's even better is it they don't have the item on the website and it's on sale at the store, then they have to order through another store. Thus, the way this works is wanting an item that's extremely hard to find that has to be ordered through another store. It has about a 66% chance of working based on my experience.

Now I'm off to organize my thoughts...
among other things.

Polyester is a B-ee-tch!

While I'm fond of learning new things, about 33%-50% of those new things are learned by trial and many many errors.

In my taking advantage of the Tax free weekend, I bought a shift dress at Banana Republic. It was only about $30 and unlike most of my other dresses, this one could be worn on a more regular basis. It was very Fall appropriate and that argument pushed me over the fact that it was 100% polyester.

After having the odd sense to wear it while still summery, it had absorbed it's fair share of my sweat and I thought to myself, "Ill just wash it, no big deal." Upon coming out of the dryer, nearly all of the seams had come out of the hem and sleeves.

Since I recently bought 3 new pairs of trousers, I brought one of them to the tailors and I took my dress along thinking that the seams wouldn't be a big deal. $28.50 for the dress hem, $18.50 for the sleeves. A grand $20 more than I paid for the entire dress. I have tailor loyalty already, so these are my go to people, but as much as I love them, I've decided that I'm going to try and sew the hems myself.

Polyester isn't exactly silk, and it's really delicate. It's not really the best of both worlds.

Moral of the story: Read care tags, and follow them.

Mimicry

I haven't been updating as much as I wanted to. Still, I'm not one to have this blog fade to black as soon as I start it, so here I go again. I'll try to work my way up from bimonthly.

A few weeks ago, I reflected upon my mentorship by Lucky Mag. There was a small article on closet organization in the first issue I received (March 2003). I got excited about that because unlike the other style advice, I could act on this one. In my dorm, I was going to have a workable closet - the one I had at home had a broken sliding door and the better half of it consisted of suits that my dad did not wear.

Unfortunately, on a relatively recent bout at my old house, I was unable to find the March 2003 issue of Lucky. I had the intentions of scanning that picture of the organized closet and posting it here. On a brighter note though, maybe it was because of how excited I was about the article, or because I found the advice sound, reasonable, and logical, I've organized my various college-life closets accordingly ever since.

While I'll admit, the colors were more vivid in the article - this replica works fine for explanation. I've also learned creative ways to attach my shoe rack to less door-like closet enclosures. Drawers were not a part of the original Lucky Mag layout, but it would also be an inefficient use of space in my 10 ft X 11 ft room to have the drawer set anywhere else.

-as observed by hanger spacing, I have a higher proportion of long to short clothing. My closet is actually just one large closet. Before the door divide lie all my shorter clothes:

Blazers, blouses, and short skirts. I figured that format allows me to maximize my use of space. By placing my drawers under my shortest clothing, I get the bonus of having a place to put my deconstructed moving boxes.

I fall into the category of people who have to have their clothes divided by shape where color is the secondary factor.

Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine recommend (in What you wear can change your life) to hang clothes in outfits and colors that go together. I don't think it's a bad idea, but sometimes, I feel that clothes can get lost in this mode of organization. It probably makes mornings easier. For a bum like me, I prefer a mode of organization that doesn't require changing up every season. I find it easier to take a visual inventory as well think about each piece individually.



The second part of the closet contains my mid-length and long skirts, pants, and dresses.

The area covered by the divide contains all of my sweaters (save the thicker Wintery sweaters since Winter doesn't seem to be very big in Texas). This is where all my cardigans and thinner sweaters reside.

I don't condone the hanging of sweaters - it takes up more space than folding, but I think it's worse for the sweaters in general. You get pointed shoulders, and it exacerbates a sweater's tendency to stretch. This also goes for the hanging of pants half-wise over a hanger - it creates more bulk, also that annoying knee-mark in trousers. One of the things that I haven't personally experienced, noted by Lucky:

- hanging pants over hangers can cause uneven stretching in one of the pant legs.

A note by the WNTW (What not to wear) duo:

- hanging pants by the hem (or in my case, the waist), saves time from ironing.

Under my makeshift sweater shelf, I've arranged my larger bags, like my backpack and overnight bag. And that is my laundry basket under there. I've attached my shoe rack to the closet door with wire and a tack. The rack was acquired from The Container Store and to date, is the only item I acquired after seeing it in Lucky. The rack helps shoes maintain their shape and allows them to breathe - I think it's a good alternative for those who are not fond of the bulk or keeping shoe boxes. The rack has been discontinued, but there are many good alternatives out there. I also use it to hang scarves and other little knick-knacks, though it's not in the direction of organization, I'm fond of the mildly thrown-together look in vintage stores

The shelving above is what I use for storage. There are some extra shoes above my shirts and above my skirts is my minimal purse collection.

My boyfriend described my closet as freakishly organized and a very effective use of space. Hopefully this will be a closet habit I carry on beyond my college years.

This closet is fairly easy to achieve. If a closet doesn't come with shelving, I purchased my cloth hanging shelf at Ikea ($15) - my rack was $20 at The Container Store, although it retailed for $30 - it was a display, but otherwise free of defect - always check the sale sections. Buying clips for hangers makes better hanging for skirts and pants, and is cheaper than buying the hangers specially made for trousers and skirts. Be wary of the grip of the hangers, if ridged - they can leave a pattern on materials like velvet, or silk - they might even be damaging. In an earlier post, I noted that the hanger clips from The Container Store - sucked. They were just made for Container Store hangers. They slip on hangers bought elsewhere.

The rest is a matter making the most of your closet and putting some time into organization. My freakishly organized closet wasn't conceived until I was done moving in to my room. Hopefully it will stay that way. On a closing note, some harsh words I swear by:

NO WIRE HANGERS!

Side Note

As much as I'm growing to like wooden hangers, they take up more space than my closet can accommodate and they're expensive.

For the past 4 years, I've been getting clips for my plastic hangers. Due to my bad memory, I've ended up with a variety of clips since I can never remember where I get my favorite ones. That said - my inspiration for this blog - the clips from The Container Store are exceedingly substandard. Clips should stay in place.