Aspects of Tiny Living: Downsizing Your Closet

Robyn posing beautifully in not one, but two 25 yard skirts for a performance

I listed some of my downsizing tips in my armoire post,  but I note that I am still downsizing on a daily basis.  I think I am hoarding clothing a bit.  While I realize that I no longer work in an office, I am reluctant to remove my office clothes from my collection. Additionally, I have a hard time purging fancy dresses. I got rid of my prom dress, bridesmaid dresses, but do not wish to give away my pretty dancing dresses.  I kind of hang my head in shame here.

So, I acquired a small clothing rack for the things that don’t fit in my armoire.  I have come to the determination that I hate it because it takes up so much darn room (it’s 2 feet wide and 4 feet long).

The other clothing issue I run into, I really enjoy playing dress up. I participate in medieval re-enactment, and I am also a belly dancer.  This leads to a bit of a conflict of interest when downsizing my clothing (25 yard skirts take up a lot of room). So I have been coming up with inventive ways to hang some of my accessories [right].  I took a strip of fancy ribbon and tacked it to the wall with a flower shaped upholstery tack.

I have a hope chest that my grandfather made and gave to me when I was 14, which is currently in a storage shed.  I have not put it in The Fortune Cookie yet because I was still arranging items around to make room for it and I cannot lift it by myself.  I am of the mind that it is time it came in here.  I am bartering some hair goods with a friend to make me a fancy cushion for the hope chest.  This will make it multi-functional and give me a place to store my random synthetic hair, crafting supplies, clothing and jewelry.  I just need to sucker someone into helping me carry the hope chest over here.

How to hang hair flowers. An idea I picked up from my friend Kim

So to answer Hazel, I’m still working on downsizing my items.  I find clothing the hardest to get rid of, as much of it was expensive, handmade and really hard for me to part with.  I have made a rule that if I buy something, I have to make another item leave.   Which works to a certain extent, but not always.   I think living in a small space has mostly had a huge impact on how I buy.  I do not have room for anything ‘extra’.

I was advised by a number of people that I could buy Rubbermaid totes and store them under my house.  I thought about this, thinking it was an awesome idea.  I also realized that taking up that practice, might influence my shopping or purging practices.  Thus far, I have elected not to do that.

The other thing I seem to notice that other Tiny House owners do not cover is where they keep their dirty laundry.  I do not live in a magical world where my small space really allows me to hide my laundry basket, or dirty clothing.  Mine is in a pretty wicker basket with a lid, right next to my armoire.  I store my laundry bag inside the wicker basket and use that to carry my laundry back and forth when I take my laundry to be laundered elsewhere. Now, prior to living in such a small house, I had a closet I could hide most things in.  Not anymore.  I also (I hate to say) used to be horrible about putting my clean laundry away.  However, ever since living in such a small space, I am excellent about doing my laundry and putting it away.  If you lapse on this, it takes way too much of your house.

I think you end up finding out what you can and cannot live with pretty quickly.  There are a number of smaller items that I thought I could not live without, and found out that it took up too much space.  I came to determine having the open space was more valuable than the item.   As I am writing this, I realize that I need to go through my clothing again.  That is a task for this week.  My goal is to make everything fit in my armoire.  Wish me luck!

~Kera~