Closet Culling & Counting - 82% Thrifted and growing...

Back in December I had culled my closet and dresser, pulling out warm weather stuff and other unworn pieces. At that point I had merely piled it all into a large storage bin and shoved it into the spare room upstairs.

That spare room will be the death of me I know it. I'm slowly going through the bins in the basement, trying to get a handle on the kid's clothes first. I'm pruning the kid's wear collection down to pieces we've actually used before and still have life left in them. This way I hope to condense several of the bins, freeing up a few for when I finally make it upstairs.

I've said before I'm fairly low maintenance, but my one indulgence is clothing. I collect it. I basically have a "currently wearing" closet / dresser and a "saving for later" um, room. In my defense, it is the smallest room in the house, beside the 1/2 bath. A representative from United Van Lines was here a couple weeks ago, walking through the house to give us a packing/moving estimate. When I opened the door to the spare room I gulped and passed it off as our "attic" and promised him that about half of the stuff in there would likely be gone before moving time. Nevertheless, the quote from United Van Lines was like twice the size of other moving companies. Everyone has skeletons in the closet right?

Last week I did more superficial weeding, yet again avoiding the spare room, working only in my "currently wearing" closet and dresser. This time I put aside items for donation and organized the remaining pieces by "non-thrifted" and "thrifted."

In the picture to the left, the non-thrifted pieces and shoes are on the left. Everything else, to the right of the gap and including the shoe rack, qualifies as thrifted, hand-me-down or gifted. The qualitative researcher in me took voice notes, recording an informal count and categorization.

Out of the 131 hung items, 23 were "non-thrifted," older bought-new clothes. Eight dresses (with the oldest being one from '96 or '97). Seven short sleeve knit tops. Five long sleeve knit tops. One woven long sleeve top. Two knit sweaters.

The remaining 108 pieces were "thrifted" and there were: 12 skirts; +/- 42 dresses; 5 sweater vests; 4 short sleeve sweaters; 9 cardigans; 2 hoodies; 5 long sleeve solid knit tops; 3 printed long sleeve knits tops; 1 woven jacket; 1 terry cloth pull-over; 4 woven long sleeve tops; 8 short sleeve knit tops; and 6 vests.

For shoes, in the older "non-thrifted" category I've got my oxblood Doc Martens from like '96, plus a few others in the spare room. I used to have very few thrifted shoes, but they've been a goal of mine this past year, so now I have 12 pair: 5 of which are boots; 2 casual tennis shoes; 1 pair slip-ons; 3 sandals;/ and 1 pair clown shoes. More thrifted summer ones are in the spare room.

Further reflection can be done on these statistics, but the one figure I was curious about was the part of my "currently wearing" closet that is thrifted. Right now that percentage is 82%!

In my dresser, there are two drawers of jeans and slacks, all of which are thrifted. Plus two drawers of thrifted skirts. So once I get around to narrowing down / packing my complete "wearing" wardrobe, the thrifted percentage may go up a bit more.

Strangely enough, one of biggest categories I can't seem to whittle down is 3 drawers of lounge/sleep wear... tank tops and t-shirts I don't want to give up, either because they are super comfy, have sentimental value or get worn occasionally as underlayers; plus several knit PJ pants; babydoll dresses, etc.

Very little of that loungewear is thrifted, but the majority of it, if not hand-me-downs or gifts, is just plain old old old. These are all pieces that I wouldn't donate due to how worn or maybe even stained they are. However, I hesitate to just trash them, so I hang on to them. But I think the end may be sight for all but one drawer of it, especially since there is likely a large bag of similar "rag quality" pieces waiting to be put out of its misery in the spare room. I gotta live up to the promise I made the moving man...