How eight months of one system taught the girls how to keep a neater barracks!
September 6, 2018
Organization for Clothing
I like things organized.
I also can’t stand washing tons of clothing.
One day I’d finally finished with 7 loads of clothing and walked back to the barracks (girls’ bedroom) to check on something… and walked onto a four-inch-thick carpet of folded clothing just dropped on the floor! (Rebeccah’s and Christina’s bed were quilted with their clothing!)
Instantly, I was like, “come put your clothes in your drawers!”
Five voices replied with, “There’s no room.”
Lightbulb! They have too many clothes.
We had just moved from a house where clothing storage wasn’t an issue. We had two large closets, plenty of hanging space, and a full dresser for each girl. Now the barracks had two dressers where three had three drawers on the smaller one and two had two on the larger one. They had enough space for their play clothes in the drawers while the small closet had enough space for everyone’s hanging nice clothes.
At least, it originally had enough room.
But we love hand-me-downs. And my kids sometimes don’t want to admit they have grown out of something so it sits in their drawers.
Lightbulb! I can do this and teach them organizational skills!
I already intercepted and tossed torn or otherwise destroyed clothes on their way to the washer (this led Christina to doing her own laundry because she LOVED certain clothes and keeps nighttime outfits until they literally fall apart), if anything no longer met the clothing modesty guidelines, it was altered, donated, or handed to the next in line, and shoes had to fit in the shoe compartments (everyone has two cubicles) – notice the flip-flops are community property.
Rebeccah loves shoes, so do you see that polka-dotted sheet on one corner of her bed? That hides a small cardboard box in which she keeps her special shoes! (It’s out of reach of the dress-up crowd & saved so the polish doesn’t get scuffed.)
We started doing what I already do to my clothes every month. Purging.
For the next eight months, we used this system. I have a list of “necessaries,” otherwise known as clothes they should have. We would start on a day when all the laundry was complete. Starting with the oldest, she’d bring in her clothes and go through them to make sure she still fit and wanted them, retiring destroyed stuff to the garbage, putting aside items she had outgrown, and packing away stuff she didn’t want anymore. She’d pick out the necessaries, put them away, and fill the space with whatever else she wanted. Anything extra went in the donate pile.
The next in line would repeat, with the option of augmenting her supply with otherwise “donated” items from previous big sister.
Necessities: Five bottoms (two must be jeans), five tops, one church outfit, one long sleeve “jacket,” seven pairs of underwear and socks, two nighttime outfits, one pair of sneakers, and one pair of church shoes.
All the above fit into one of the drawers and on two hangers easily, so there was plenty of leftover space for other clothes.
This system gave them inspiration to roll or fold their clothing in order to keep everything fitting well. Lucas has only one drawer and he keeps everything neat!
This system lasted only eight months because by that time, all of them were purging their own stashes as needed. We didn’t have to make it a monthly event anymore. Even Lucas will put a shirt on and if it’s too tight, he will pull it off, say “time for someone else to wear you,” and lay it on my bed. (His drawer is in my bedroom.)
Kimberly and Rebeccah love having lots of choices, so they utilize more of the hanging space than Jaquline and Jillian. Christina’s hanging space is loaded with CAP uniforms, and a couple of dresses from her aunts which she claims “I’ll never wear, but I keep just in case.”
Our system has only backfired once so far: when Christina was planning for encampment, she was required to have 12 undecorated t-shirts in two specific colors plus 6 “workout shirts” (additional plain t-shirts!). We had to search every thrift and resale shop in Saint Augustine for enough tan, black, and white t-shirts! When she got back there was the issue of keeping them stored – Christina didn’t want to hang them all or give them away since she planned on going to future encampments so she just rolled them in her luggage bag and hung it in the closet! It took less space than 18 hangers.
Going backward: I was about 14, stood in front of my mobile closet (clothes rack), and spent almost fifteen minutes deciding what to wear! That started me on the lifestyle of keeping necessities, only a few other items with specific purposes that fit into whatever clothes storage system I had, and routinely donating what I couldn’t fit or didn’t want. Call it purging or minimalist, or whatever, it helps me spend less time thinking about clothing… and hopefully, I’ve passed that practicality on in some way.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart
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