Clothes Overload...Fixed

So last month I posed a question about what was a reasonable quantity of clothing to have for your kids.  I didn't get much for suggestions so I decided I’d try to figure it out myself this past month.

You’d think organizing the kids clothes really wouldn't take too long but with the quantity of clothes my girls have, it was a much larger project than I had originally anticipated.

Here is what my last month consisted of…

Step One – Empty Drawers

We emptied all of their drawers that should have contained clothing that currently fit them.  There were so many clothes stuffed in those drawers that most of it never even got touched and we found that most of them didn't even fit them anymore.  So we sorted all of those clothes into two piles… clothes that fit and clothes that no longer fit.   The clothes that no longer fit the second daughter were put directly into a bag to head to the thrift store.  The clothes that no longer fit the first daughter were sorted by size to be kept for the second daughter.   After this first step, we had quite a few piles on the girls’ bedroom floor!

Step Two – Empty Bins

In the attic space in the girls’ room I had about five bins full of clothing.  Hand me downs from the first daughter and hand me downs that I have generously received from family and friends.  Some I hadn't even had a chance to go through since they were given to me.  We took out each bin and sorted the clothes again by size.  Unfortunately when I packed the bins originally, I didn't take too much time to sort them out properly so each bin contained various sizes of clothing.  You wouldn't think this would take too much time; however, it ended up taking a full week.  A lot of the clothes coming out of the bins needed to be tried on to see if it would fit the girls currently.  My girls love trying on clothes but after the 10^th pair of pants and 15^th shirt… they were done.  So the project was split up between quite a few evenings.  After this step, we had so many piles of clothes on the girls’ bedroom floor that you actually couldn't see the bedroom floor anymore!   I really should have taken some pictures so that you could see that I am not exaggerating!

Step Three – Fill Drawers

Once everything was tried on and sorted, we started the process of putting their clothes that currently fit back into their drawers.  I think I've mentioned this before but the girls don’t have closets in their room so we have to put all of their clothing into a set of built in drawers.  We do have one small area behind their bedroom door to hang things up but that is mostly for their dresses.  So in all the girls have six drawers to hold all of their clothes.  Knowing this we decided that even with the clothes that currently fit them we would need to pare things down.  I didn't count out a certain number of tops, jeans, sweatshirts, etc. I just kept what I thought they would wear.  If there were items that fit but that I knew they didn't really like or never really chose to wear I got rid of them.  So I think even though I can’t give you a number, we finally have it down to a reasonable amount for the girls and for the space that we have.

Step Four – Fill Bins

The last step was to fill the bins back up with the clothes that did not fit the girls yet.  I didn't want to end up with the mess that we had before and in a few months having to sort through the endless bins in search of clothes that may or may not fit the girls.  So I needed to come up with a better solution.  When I was researching about the quantity of clothing you should have for your kids on the internet, I came across a site that talked about keeping a clothing inventory.  After reading about it I couldn't figure out why I hadn't thought about that before, it makes perfect sense.  So as I put the clothes in the bins, I counted the items by article and by size.  Once I was done, I made the following spreadsheets that I will be storing in the attic space with the bins. 

 

Clothing Inventory Sheet

This way when it comes time to move the second daughter into the next size clothing, I can grab the spreadsheet and see what I have I already have in storage.  Now I won’t end up buying things that I already have plenty of.  I also think I may keep a copy in my car.  Yes, I did say in my car.  I think this will be a great thing to take with me when I go garage sale shopping.  I can fill in the gaps and be prepared for the upcoming seasons.

I started this whole process just to pare down the amount of clothing that the girls had.  I accomplished that  (5 garbage bags FULL of clothes we donated to the thrift store!) and I was able to improve on my current clothing storage system.  The process was not fun.  It was long and frustrating at times, but the end result is worth the time spent.  I just wish I would have done it sooner!