June 26, 2011

A Peek Inside My Closet



Where the magic happens





































My closet may not be all that sexy, or beautiful or even all that organized, but I know many of you have expressed an interest in seeing it, so I finally decided to satisfy your curiosity! I thougt a video would be the easiest way to explain what everything is. It's about 2 minutes long and I give you the full tour. (The only thing I left out: all those shoe boxes up top are empty. I just like to hang onto them since we have the room, but all of my shoes are actually down below.) I'm excited to hear what you think - is my closet much smaller than what you would have guessed? Anything else surprise you about it? How do you organize your own closet?

My section of the closet



































Wall of necklaces

49 comments:

  1. You have just given me 2 amazing ideas! A box/bag with my winter stuff in my closet will totally give me more dresser space and that wall hook with necklaces. My friend has one in her bathroom and I've wanted one BUT I never thought to put it in the closet.
    And yes! You're closet is a lot smaller than I imagined. Mine is like 2x that size and I'm not nearly as stylish as you, so I need to get a move on! :-)

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  2. I really like the idea of using a "keychain" hanger for necklaces. I have those plastic pocket things that you hang and can use on both sides and it works with everything but the idea of seeing them hung up is much better. Also, nice use of space. I recently started moving some of my winter clothes (which in Miami is not much) to my mom's bigger closet and I'm selling and/or donating some clothes that I don't wear anymore so that it can be a bit more organized. 

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  3. Ahh the closet- such a humbling little space for everyone. I just did a post on mine. I, too, organize mine by genre. It just keeps my ideas turning, when I am reaching for a specific part( top, bottom, belt). Thanks  for letting us be Nosy Nellies!

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  4. I LOL at your belt reveal....you could hardly hold it. So cute. I loved seeing into the "magic" place that is "J"!!
     

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  5. I just hung the exact hook thing in my closet a couple of months ago!  It's been so helpful! I always forget all my options that this really keeps all my necklaces in sight.

    I love seeing how other people organize their closets.  The only thing that bothers me about my friends closets is when they don't hang things up or  hang things up wrong side out!  My OCD takes over then. I have rearranged two friends closets this past year. Now they don't say "I dont' have anything to wear" so much.  Except the one who never hangs up her clean clothes.  

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  6. Wow, I can't believe how much smaller it is than I imagined!!  My closet is so much bigger and yet I don't feel that I put myself together nearly as well as you.  It just goes to show that one needs a well edited wardrobe, as well as a plan :)  Thank you so much for sharing!
    xoxoxo
    Lia

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  7. Yeap! I thought you had a HUGE closet, but as said before it shows all you need is to know how to take advantage of what you have in your wardrobe and pick your pieces wisely :D Thanks for sharing!
    Gretel

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  8. I liked seeing your closet! I pictured it being bigger as most readers probably did - but honestly I think its awesome that you have a "real girls" closet... really shows that shopping smart can make your closet appear to be much bigger than it actually is.

    Love the necklace rack too... great idea :)

    xo Teresa
    www.teresalifeandstyle.blogspot.com

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  9. WOW!!! Your closet is like 4 times bigger than mine ;) It's nice to have a place where you can put all your clothes, shoes and bags together :)
    i loved to see your wardrobe, thanks for sharing honey :)
    Kisses

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  10. Thanks for sharing your closet with us, and yes, it's much, much smaller than I thought it would be.  My own closet is much larger, but holds much, much less clothing.  I need to do something about that! ;)   My favorite thing in your closet is all those gorgous huge necklaces...love 'em!!!

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  11. I thought I was the only one who organized my necklaces like that! Great minds think alike?

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  12. I loved that your closet is a "real" closet.  Thank you so much for sharing it with us.  I organize my necklaces the same way.  I also keep my earrings in a tackle box I guess with all of the little compartments where I can sort them by pairs.  I think keeping it organized makes it look like I don't have as much to my husband.  :)

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  13. I love how you posted your closet!  I actually just redid my section of the closet today and got rid of some things!  However just a tip...I use an over the door shoe hanger for all of my scarves, belts and my boyfriends baseball hats.  It works great and I can see everything!  It was cheap too!  $7 at Target in their closet section.  Organization is key to anything especially clothes!  You have inspired me to try new outfits and clothes and helped make me feel the way I used to feel about clothing!  Oh ya and I'm a fellow Kansas girl too!

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  14. I organize my closet by "types" also!  I just can't remember everything I have like you can!

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  15. I organize by genre too- works the best!

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  16. First of all, I LOVE your blog, J!!! I'm so glad I came across it - I look forward to your posts every day! Your closet is much smaller than I imagined it would be...however, that just proves to me that it's not about how much you have, but how you put it all together. Something I'm striving toward! After reading (and watching your post) I went through my closet and donated everything that I haven't worn (and probably would never wear again) in over a year...and my husband did the same with his clothes! Which begs the question, how often do you go through your clothes and "clean out" items you don't wear anymore? Once a year? each season? How do you know what to toss and what to hold on to?

    Keep up the awesome blog-ness!
    Jen :)

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  17. Hi J-

    Love that necklace rack!  I've been trying to figure out a way to organize mine and now you've inspired me.
    Thanks!

    Lynn

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  18. I have only just discovered your blog and find it really great that you can dress so funky,trendily and yet classy fr so little money.Your wardrobe looks smaller than it should be ,but you obviously have uch a great eye for style and trend.Love the necklace hook, will have to do that in my home too. Looking forward to future blogs.

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  19. Hi Jen, thanks so much for your note and welcome to the blog! :-) I really go through my closet whenever the urge hits me - lately I have been selling my lightly used items on my Facebook page so that gives me extra motivation to purge several times a year. I wrote this post awhile back (it's under "How To Articles") about when to keep and when to toss items where I explain my strategy. Hope this helps! http://www.jseverydayfashion.com/2011/02/todays-everyday-fashion-what-to-keep.html

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  20. Estefania, I feel your pain. When we lived in Boston, our closet was about 1/10th of the size and we shared it. My stuff was all over the house and it was not fun! Definitely nice to have everything in one closet.

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  21. Nicole, I think that thing weighs more than I do, I can barely pick it up, haha! :-)

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  22. K I just pinned your wall of necklaces on Pintrest.  Love it!!

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  23. Not what I expected at all! I love that it's nothing fancy and it works for you! The necklace idea is great, I have two of those in my closet...one for necklaces and one for belts. (I don't have as many as you though)

    Thanks for sharing!

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  24. If you like that picture, you will love this post. A peek inside my jewelry box: http://www.jseverydayfashion.com/2010/10/peek-inside-my-jewelry-box.html

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  25. Loved this post. I was super sad when I had to share my closet with my hubs bc I love big closets but you've given me inspiration to use the space I have in a functional way. Thanks for the tour!

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  26. Very cool! I organize my clothes by genre and then color-coded within genre. A little too much? Hahah, it works for me though. I love the necklace holder idea!

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  27. I thought it would be bigger, but then again it IS densely packed with clothes (and shoes!) so you DO have a lot of clothes (more than enough to always look good, put together, fashionable, or whatever you need to look like because of the certain occasion or however you feel like that particular day) and the room you have for it is really well organized! (although I don't see much space for more stuff and you are a regular shopper... any plans? :)  )
    For the time being, I don't have a walk in closet, or one big closet whatsoever (one that would cover one whole wall of the room, with sliding doors... for example) so I keep my dresses, skirts, pants(not jeans), blouses, button-down shirts, cardigans, sweatshirts with zipper, blazers, jackets and coats in two separate  closets(pieces of furniture) with hangers, and T-shirts, tanks, camis, sweaters, sweatshirts, jeans I keep folded in closets with shelves... Those closets with hangers(don't know how else to call them :) ) each have one shelf near the bottom so I keep my purses and some shoes on them, and also some shoes below them, on the bottom of the closet. I would love to have all of that organized in one place (we call it here "American closet", you of course just call it closet, haha ;) )
    I certainly don't "follow any rules" regarding "old" items... I COMPLETELY agree with you, I toss something that is worn out, stained, ripped, or I REALLY don't like it anymore or for some reason it doesn't fit or it simply isn't my style anymore... other than that - I keep things for a really long time...
    J, thanx a lot for sharing your closet with us :))

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  28. The container store would be a great place for you to start organizing your closet.  You could get the clear stackable containers for your shoes so that you could see them without having to open the boxes and the boxes open from the front so you don't have to pull them down to get to your shoes.  This would also prevent you from having your shoes boxes fall on top of you. 
    I put my scarves, swimsuits, and hosiery in sweater boxes that are stackable.  They look great and keep the items protected better than a shopping bag. 
    I love how you piece together your outfits.  If I get stuck in the morning trying to decide what to wear I just log on to your website to get an idea. 

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  29. Ivory, those shoe boxes are empty. I keep all my shoes on the ground where I can easily grab them! :-) 

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  30. Ana, I am absolutely blessed and feel that way everyday when I enter my closet. I have way more than enough stuff for one girl!! :-) There actually is room for new stuff because I just cleaned it, but if I run out of hangers, I just pick a few items to move to the spare room. 

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    Replies
    1. I also have a small, crowded closet. I wondered if you've thought of buying huggable hangers? I LOVE them!

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  31. Thank you for bringing us into your inspiration area! I also thought it would be a larger area, this gives me hope that I can purge some of my old clothes and buy something more versatile. Love the necklace hooks also much better than the nails I have. Thanks again for sharing!

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  32. I think your closet shows that you don't have to have a huge wardrobe to have a great variety of awesome outfits -- it's all about mixing & matching! Thanks for letting us take a peek!

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  33. I was surprised that your closet looks like my closet  - but I am way less put together. This is just motivation for myself, if you can do it, maybe I can too. Thanks for the insight!

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  34. Thanks Hannah! That is (hopefully) one of the big appeals of this blog. I'm really not all that creative, don't have a big budget and I have no fashion training whatsoever, so if I can do this stuff then you guys definitely can too! :-)

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  35. Love this post. I am always interested to see how other people organize their closets! We are moving (later today actually, maybe I should go finish packing, haha) but that means I get to reorganize my closet again. I am quite excited because I'll have a lot more space than we do now.

    Just a question about your sweaters/cardigans. Did you say you hang them up? I was always told you should fold them because the hangers would stretch the sweater/cardi and it would get misshapen. Do you not run into that problem? 

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  36. Kelly, I do hang up my cardigans. I've heard that it's probably not the best for them, but I've been doing it for years and have never really noticed any that are stretched out. I prefer to hang them so I can see them, and I hate folding clothes. Good luck with your move today! :-)

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  37. Yes, it's alot smaller than I thought.You seem like you have so much more clothes than was in your closet, which just goes to show you what a good re-mixer you are :)  Me on the otherhand, I have 2 big walk-ins, one in each bedroom, and yet I have nothing to wear!  I organize mine by category (tanks, tees, dresses...like yours), but I also do each section by color.  I have a separate wooden shoe rack that I got at Wal-mart, and you can just keep building it higher and higher, but I'm not happy with that, so I'm trying to figure out a new way.  For my necklaces & bracelets I took a round long wooden thing, can't remember what you call them now, you can get them at Hobby Lobby, I bought gold screw-in little hangers, like yours but smaller and I spaced them evenly across the wood thing, then went to framing and used 2 brackets to hang it on the wall, and each hook holds 2-3 necklaces all the way across.  I'll put a picture of it on my blog for anyone that is interested.  Thanks for showing us your closet!

    http://tryintobestylin.com

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  38. Your closet is definitely smaller than I expected. I'm one to organize it by roygbiv but only with the shirts. then skirts have a section, pants, dresses, and clothes that need to be ironed. 


    I love seeing what other closets look like so THANK YOU.

    I don't seem to have a blog post on my entire closet but http://scrapandrun.blogspot.com/2011/05/friend-friday-shoes.html shows how my shoes are organized.

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  39. You can make so many outfits from those items! You could get a similar rack like your necklaces to hang your belts, I did, and I love it. I like your everyday girl post:)

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  40. Samantha DieschbourgOctober 26, 2011 at 6:34 PM

    Hi. Ima  new follower and was lookina t some of your older posts. I have a suggestion for your closet. You know your double hanger of belts.. Well it might help if when you put them thru the hanger if you clasp ur belts. that why they can freely spin around and you can slide themback and forth. Hope it helps.

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  41. Your closet is a lot loooot smaller than what your wardrobe, remixing and outfits seem to be. Now, I have moved to Europe with my husband (for work, and a new life) about a month ago, so as you can imagine I had to get a rid of a ton of stuff. In US, I had 2 full large walk-in closets full of my stuff plus a full room that my husband called my "Walk In Closet Room", plus lots of drawers, 2 dressers, a decent size shoe closet and a closet for coats and outwear. A couple of months ago I got rid of 50% of my stuff and made 7 trips to Salvation Army with an SUV full of clothes and shoes. Now that I live in a big European city with european-sized closets I am managing to live large in a different way. Yes I have a nice closet and it is a decent size but I also packed only about 25% of what I own, the rest is in my bedroom at my parents home back in the US. However you will start seeing lots of outfits from me as well as lots of remixing, matching, etc, etc. I live in a different city, with much smaller space and I am basically living a different life now so with that came down-sizing in a big, big way. =)

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  42. I love using the "over the door" hangers with several hooks for my belts so they can hang up similiar to how you hang your necklaces.

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  43. I feel like "editing" my closet RIGHT NOW after watching your vid! Yikes, I have more clothing and less style. WTF?! BTW, just in general you're making me consider belts in a whole new way. You rock 'em beautifully!

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  44. LOL Sarah! I have a new closet now that's much bigger, only half full but trust me I still have plenty of clothes. :-) Thank you though! Hoping to give you guys a tour of my new closet soon!

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  45. Yay! I feel less like a hoarder! ;) Keep doing what you're doing. You're adorable! 

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  46. Trust me honey, every girl shares the same dilemma with their closet space. I myself don't even have a single space for my black leggings in my drawer so I just put it in the fridge sometimes.

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  47. I love the way you hang your necklaces! I have one of those hook things that I need to hang up...and tons of necklaces in a plastic bag that need organizing! Thank you!

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  48. I love this, it makes me believe I can tame my closet!

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