I’m Getting A Life Less Cluttered, One Room at a Time.
As you can imagine, I have a lot of activewear (36 pairs of leggings that I actually do wear; 25 sports bras; 17 pairs of shorts; 47 shirts and jackets; 30 tennis pieces; and way too many sneakers to count… I know, I can’t believe I am actually sharing that. No judgement, pleeeeaaaasssssee!!). Any organizer will tell you to follow the “one in, one out” rule, but for the past year, it’s been in, in, in. And I don’t expect that to change as I continue to discover new brands and styles to share with you all!
Activewear has not only taken over my life (in the best way), but it’s completely taken over my closet. The leggings started to spill over my shelves, the bras out of my drawers, and eventually, everything landed on my closet floor where I was recently just pulling from piles. This was not ideal. Not to mention, it was impossible to find that darn high-waisted, camo, compressive tight that I wanted to wear for my run as I am rushing to get out the door!
See what I mean. Not good.
Lucky for me, my talented SIL, Devin, just launched her dream business: A Life Less Cluttered. A Life Less Cluttered provides home organizing for busy families across the Philadelphia area. And while my entire life really needs an organizational overhaul since 2020 happened to my house, we both agreed that doing my closet would be a good place to start.
Devin follows a process. First, she starts with a phone consultation, where she discusses goals and sets forth an organizing plan. For me, I want a designated area in my closet that is just for my growing activewear collection. I need a place where I can clearly see (and find) all of my fitness finds. I want it to look aesthetically pleasing in case I decide to video or photograph in my closet. And I need room to grow. I am sorry Devin, I just cannot follow the “one in, one out” rule.
Meet Devin, the woman behind A Life Less Cluttered. She’s a folding artist. Check out my Instagram all weekend long to see some of her special folding techniques.
We decided that while Devin was going to work on that one area of my closet, she should just do the entire thing. The next step in her process is to remove ALL of the contents. Devin believes it’s best to start with a clean slate. So out went all of my handbags, my shoes, my sweaters, my jeans and yes, my activewear. Devin took everything out of my closet except for my regular hanging clothes. And this was definitely the most anxiety provoking part of the process as the contents of my messy closet took over my bedroom.
Next, Devin works with her client to categorize the contents of whatever room she is tackling. Devin helps decide what to donate, trash or sell. I am a regular consigner. I consign every season and actually just did a huge drop off at Renaissance Consignment in Bryn Mawr. So I thought for sure that there wasn’t much for me to do at this step. But, boy was I wrong because at the end of our session, we had filled 3 large black trash bags, two huge bags of donations and had a few additional items for me to consign. I like to think that I am good at deciding what to consign or trash, but Devin can certainly help her clients with this step if they need it.
Now that everything was out of my closet, Devin could work her magic. She completely redesigned the plan of my closet. Here’s how she transformed the space:
I’ve always known that clear shoe boxes are a good, cohesive way to store your shoes. The Container Store sells various sizes of clear boxes in bulk, so they are a pretty good value, too. The Container Store also now offers these shoe boxes with a front opening for easy access to the contents. But I wasn’t going to reinvest in the same kind of product, so Devin made what I had work. Turns out that while I had the right product, I had been using them all wrong. I had piled the shoes on top of each other in columns of about a dozen, which made it impossible to get to any of my shoes that weren’t on the very top. Devin suggested columns only 4 boxes high, along the perimeter of my closet, under the shorter hanging clothes. Now, it is so much easier to see and grab any of my shoes.
The picture on the left shows what I was doing all wrong with the right product. Obviously, I couldn’t get to any of my shoes. Devin stacked the clear shoe boxes only 4 boxes high and it has made such a difference. Mind blown!
Devin also likes to use clear shelf dividers. The shelf dividers are great to support stacked sweaters without them toppling over; ideal for sorting handbags; and the perfect way for me to pile up all of my leggings and fitness tops. So we bought a bunch of these at the container store because I have a large amount of shelf space around my closet.
The shelf dividers are great to keep piles organized.
One of my favorite things that Devin did was to give me a work space. I had these Elfa drawers and had purchased the extra top piece when I bought them. Devin decided to make that a spot to receive packages and sort through clothes for upcoming posts.
This area is a great place for me to organize products for upcoming posts or events.
Recall that my original goal was to have a place to neatly display all of my “work” clothes: my growing activewear collection. Given the space that I had for this, Devin thought it would be a good idea to fold my leggings and workout shirts and line them up along the top shelf. Under that, we would hang my tennis and golf clothes, zip-ups and outwear. We used the thin flat hangers and arranged the clothes by type and brand. There is plenty of room here to add overtime. I also wanted a place to nicely show some of my sneakers. Not my running shoes or the ones that I wear everyday — those are kept in the garage. We found these pretty shoe racks from Marie Kondo’s new line at the Container Store. And luckily we had room to stack these bins from the same line to store my fitness accessories (sweatbands, belt bags, yoga towels, etc.).
Here is the activewear section of my closet when it was almost done. It’s amazing that all of those floor piles are now right here.
I love these shoe racks from Marie Kondo’s new line at the Container Store. We wanted something attractive that would fit nicely in the space we had.
When Devin left, I was exhausted. Organizing is a lot of work! But my closet looked amazing. However, the true test would come weeks after she left. Could I keep my closet looking like this? Well, it’s been three weeks so far and these pictures below show the current state— looks pretty damn good! And the function of it all has worked wonders. When I had all of those breast cancer awareness fitness events this month, I was able to easily locate all of my pink clothes (I had no clue that I actually had that much pink in my closet). It’s been a breeze to find a certain legging or shirt. And while I haven’t filmed anything from my closet yet, I certainly plan to because it looks so pretty!
Here is my new, oh-so-pretty area just for my “work” clothes.
Look how good the rest of my closet looks now!
My only problem is that I want Devin to do every room in my house. We are only just getting started, Devin! Luckily, she’s family.
If you want to see what Devin can do for you, check out her website and set up a FREE 30 minute consultation with her when you mention this article. Seriously, organizing this one room has tremendously decreased the amount of stress that I have when I walk into my closet. It’s now the most peaceful room in my house and a place for me to escape the chaos out there!
I also am sharing all of the products from the Container Store that Devin used in my closet on my LiketoKnow.it page.
*This article contains affiliate links. When you click on some of the links, I may receive a very small commission at no additional cost to you. I only write about products that I genuinely use and love, and that will never change!