The Big Switch is Finished!

I am in the best mood now because my dreaded seasonal organizing task is now behind me! How can that be that a person who organizes for a living has a dreaded organizing task? Well, mine is switching out all of our clothes for the current season. I guess it bothers me so much because there are many steps to it and the house always ends up in chaos for several days while I’m making the big switch. There’s the cleaning of all the clothes so that they can be put away, figuring out with the kids what may fit the next season, and then because we live in an older house our closets are small, so that means climbing in the attic to retrieve numerous storage bins. Oh, and to make it even more of a process, I have to dismantle part of our linen closet to gain access to the attic!

My children are now 6 and almost 10, and over the years, I’ve gotten a little better at simplifying the process. I’ve also learned to buy fewer clothes, especially for my kids, because they end up wearing a lot of the same clothes…sort of like adults do. By the way, there is a statistic floating out there that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. I really try to be aware of this fact as I’m organizing the clothes for each season, to only store those clothes that I like. I realize my time is up with me dictating what my kids wear, as they are expressing more of an opinion these days, but for now they pretty much wear what I buy for them. I’ve also transitioned to those slim-line fabric hangers that you see in every store – I highly recommend them. Making sure that each closet is highly organized helps cut down on the over buying, makes the closet function better, and the slim-line hangers allow for more clothes to be hung.

I’ve learned when I put away the summer clothes, to prepare for the fall and winter, to keep out a weeks worth of each of our favorite summer clothes to have easy access to, if we are fortunate enough to get away in the winter some place warm, and also for those wonderful 85 degree days in late March and early April.

I have to chuckle now that I have all of our spring/summer clothes ready and fall/ winter put away, today is a cold, rainy 60 degree day. Go figure! I hope your clothes closets are ready so that you can dress for the season, and go enjoy the warmer weather which will hopefully be back tomorrow!