Our Home: Closet Clutter

Part of me is really, really embarrassed to show you some of this pictures. (And not only because they’re from my iPhone and not an ACTUAL camera)…

I make a living on my need/love/passion for organization & love of pretty things… yet THIS is what our closet looked like.

Welp, that’s real life right? Sometimes it’s not what you want or need, and it’s just what it IS – a mess. An unorganized, ugly mess. Ugh.

Thankfully, I spent 2 days trying to FIX that ugly mess. And I’m pretty excited about the results. 🙂 SO, without further ado, here’s a before of our closet clutter:

Let me explain a bit:

We have a 3 bedroom townhouse – a master bedroom, guest room & office/DSE headquarters. Matt graciously allowed me to have the master bedroom closet all to myself (He’s a keeper!:), and he was using the office closet for his clothes, shoes, etc. The guest room closet then became the store-all-junk-closet: wedding décor, crafts, re-gifting pile (you know we all have one), and extra random things that didn’t belong anywhere else. When I got the urge to de-clutter the space, I asked Matt if we could shift things around. It made more sense to use the office closet as my craft closet since I spent time in that room working on DSE. SO, we did a little switch-a-roo. He now has the guest room closet for his things, and the office closet is part of my pink-DSE-goodness.

(Disclaimer – all of these pics have a yellow-ish tint because our camera was acting weird & my iPhone wasn’t doing well either. BUT I think you get the general idea! A legit camera is on my wish list:)

I spent $23 on this closet overhaul, threw away 3 trash bags of JUNK and added a large pile of things to our ever-growing Goodwill section in the basement. I bought a large plastic bin (that you don’t actually see in the pics, since it’s for the re-gifting items that have been moved to our hall closet), and that pretty white bookshelf. At first, Matt did NOT understand my need for a pretty shelf… but I didn’t want THIS closet to be a place where you shut-the-door-quickly-before-anyone-sees. I wanted it to truly be an extension of my DSE space… Ribbon, glue, office supplies, styled shoot & wedding décor, silk flowers, crafts… anything and everything that didn’t have a “home” in the actual room. I want to be able to leave the door open & grab what I need, when I need it. Please tell me someone else understands that?!

I added the scrapbook-paper-dots to the wall because the closet was not repainted when our landlords painted the rest of the room. There are quite a few black marks & digs in the paint. Since it IS just a rental, Matt and I don’t want to spend money to paint it (and, as he puts it, is IS just a closet:). So, I added those dots to give it a fun pop & hid the ugly marks. Super easy, super cheap. I also have my wedding veil hanging on one side; and, I brought a Pinterest ideas to life with my ribbon hanger (AKA tie hanger). Cute, right?! I also used old decor for my craft holder – the metallic gold vases, pink vase & large clear vase are now holders for ribbon, hot glue sticks, balloons, scissors & a hole punch.

The top shelf in the closet is organized by crafts, extra decor, silk flowers & a few meaningful pieces I just like seeing in there (those two stuffed animals I’ve had since I was little, the white bag is from my bachelorette party & that tinkerbell pillow was a gift from Matt in high school:) It still looks a little full for my taste, but it’s all things I feel either myself or my brides will want access to in the future – and at least it’s all organized now! (And, for the record, I’m not just REALLY obsessed with Thirty-One bags haha! I used to be a consultant so I have quite a few cute bags that are PERFECT for storage – and super cute!)

What do you think?! Do you have plans to re-organize any of your home within the next few weeks? I’d love to hear about it 🙂

xo, kat