Spring Clean Your Custom Closets With These Tips

Stage the Scene for Success

Cleaning out your entire closet is a big job. It’s no wonder people usually do it once a season at most (and for some people, it’s once a year or not at all). Doing it all in one session is a big undertaking. If you’re planning to take on the challenge, take a few minutes to set yourself up for success first.

Does music help keep you motivated and moving? Put on your favorite playlist and crank up the volume. Are you someone who relies on caffeine? Make a pot of coffee and put it on the warmer so it’s ready when you need a refill – you could be doing this for a while. 

Speaking of which, you may want to make yourself a sandwich or some grab-and-go snacks ahead of time – if the food is already ready when you need a lunch break, you won’t get distracted by prepping the food, doing the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen, and other tasks that will keep you away from your closet. 

Basically, do whatever you can ahead of time to keep yourself in the zone and motivated as long as you need to be to get your spring closet cleaning done.

Get Everything Out

It’s been some time since you cleaned the closet, so go ahead and take everything out of it. Use the bed and other surfaces in your room to hold clothes and accessories. This gives you complete access to the empty closet so you can dust shelves, wash walls, and vacuum floors. This is your chance to get rid of dust, dirt, grime, unpleasant odors, and anything else that is difficult to reach or clean with all your clothes and accessories in the way.

This also helps ensure that you keep your motivation to finish your custom closet cleaning in one day. If your clothes are covering your bed, you can’t give up and go to sleep until you’re finished.

Store Seasonal Items Correctly

Winter is over and the weather is warming up. That means you can get your bulky winter clothes out of your way and store them somewhere else for the spring and summer. You want to make sure they’re stored correctly so they aren’t damaged by the time you need them again. 

Don’t store soiled clothes before washing – that just invites pests. What’s more, when you wash clothes that are to be stored, make sure they’re completely dry before storing, or you’re likely to wind up with moldy winter clothes by next year. Store your items in plastic bins with lids or vacuum-sealed bags instead of cardboard, as cardboard can also attract pests.

Wait until the last minute to seal and store the clothes you’re packing away for winter. As you’re putting things away, you may decide to make last-minute changes – packing away a few more pairs of jeans, or pulling a sweater out of the winter clothes in case you need one for a cold movie theater, for example.

Make a Plan for Unwanted Items

Before you put your clothes back into your newly cleaned closet, you should purge the items you don’t want to keep. Get rid of clothes that don’t fit, that are damaged, or that you just don’t like or wear anymore. It’s a good idea to make a plan for what to do with these clothes so they don’t sit there cluttering up some other area of your home. 

There are a lot of ways to get rid of unwanted clothes, from donating them to charity shops to selling them on eBay to cutting them up for rags. Something that you may not know is that even clothes that are too stained or damaged to be eligible for resale or donation don’t need to be thrown out. If you don’t want the bother of trying to do something with them yourself, like making cleaning rags or composting, there are textile recycling centers that will take them. SMART can help you locate the recycling resources closest to you.

Conclusion

Spring cleaning is a big job, but you can do it with the right plan. Make sure to get yourself ready and motivated for the big chore, clear everything out so you can deep clean the closet space, understand the best practices for storing seasonal clothes, and make a plan for your unwanted items.

Source

• https://www.smartasn.org/where-to-recycle/