This is a long post so thank you in advance for reading if you chose to do so.

I became an active member of YLF around one year ago with a goal of honing down my bloated closet, defining my personal style and setting up strategies to prevent closet bloat from recurring.

Over the course of the year I have reduced the contents of my closet to less than half of what I used to own. I have revised my color scheme. I have come up with style adjectives and learned a lot about what does and does not work well with my body shape and type.

I am still going through an evolution in my closet, because it was impossible to reach all my goals in one year but I made excellent progress. My biggest unmet goal is to have all my clothing except my coats, underwear, and exercise gear fit in my half of the large walk in closet I share with my DH. I do not want to keep any of it in under the bed storage. With this goal in mind, I have continued to edit my belongings. Picture 14 is my most recent closet purge from this weekend. These are the items which no longer match my style adjectives, don't fit well, or are not in keeping with my color palette.

I did some item counts today. These counts are across seasons:
Long sleeve blouses - 20
Short sleeve blouses and camisoles - 32
Tee's long and short sleeve - 25
Dresses (all seasons) - 43
Skirts - 20
Toppers - (Includes cardigans, jean jackets, hoodies, vests, etc.) 40
Pullover Sweaters - 46
Shoes/Boots -46
Jeans - 34
Slacks - 8

My gear isn't included in the counts but I have revised the way I store my gear since I joined YLF. I use the Kondo method of folding and even though I am not a master folder, it has definitely helped me visualize all my clothing and I am wearing all of my exercise pants now; none are stuck in the bottom of a pile. (The drawer looks neater once my laundry is done and the drawer is full again). I am thinking about getting some bins for my shelves so I can similarly fold my tops and then just pull down the bins when I need them. I guess it would end up looking a bit like my winter sweater storage bins in picture 7 or 11. My current method of separating my shelves with office supply/magazine separator's is working well enough, but the piles can still fall to the side or backwards and once in a while an item gets lost in the back of my shelves. I suspect that the bins would hold more, but my goal isn't to cram more into my closet, it's to make it so I can fit everything and still see it all easily.

Shoe storage is always an issue, I have some hanging shoe racks which you can see next to my dresses in picture 8, and then there are the under the bed containers, one of which is in picture 6. I have two of them. Then I end up sticking shoes in the mud hall cubby shown in picture 13, under my dresses as in picture 5 (which also shows my boots), on some shelves under the window in the closet as in picture 9, and along the floor of my closet in front of my shelves. I really have shoes everywhere. Finally, I have my scarves stored in an over the door shoe organizer (Picture 4). I keep my square silk scarves folded and in their boxes on the shelf under my hanging garments.

I've identified the following places to target my editing:

1. Shoes - (Now that was obvious right!) I'm not sure it will really make things fit more easily in the closet, but 76 seems like a bit much. I'm hoping I just wear some out and they go by natural attrition. Right now I am keeping track of which shoes I don't wear and those are going to the purge pile at the end of the season.
2. Jeans - 34??! Aside from purging 4 bootcut jeans (which I hate) and maybe doing some art projects on two pairs by painting one, and trying Una's high-low hem on the other, I am not sure how to edit my jeans.
4. In picture 11 you can see that I have 6 or 7 heather gray cashmere sweaters. I'm not sure how to decide which to eliminate but I'm sure I don't need them all.
5. I still have more white blouses than any other color hanging in my closet. I have definitely added some color, but this is taking time. I hope to slowly add more color and move away from the white, keeping only 4-5 white tops instead of the large number I have now.
6. I am happy with my purses. I have most of them hanging from a hook in the closet (seen in pic 3). There isn't anything to purge here. My belts are hanging from a four ring storage hanger next to the purses. I could see adding some small thin colorful belts.
7. I have two piles of tee shirts but I don't wear them very often. In fact, I mostly wear dresses and skirts in the summer, so I have more than I need. I'm thinking the best solution is to let them dwindle by wearing out. My tee's seem to get holes in them easily, and to get stains more readily than other clothes. I actually wear cami tops more than tee's. I am sure I can get by with half the number I have now.
8. It sounds like I have a lot of toppers, but I included two blazers that I never wear, all my cardigans and hoodies, a stack of cropped beige cardigans that work well over a dress but I rarely wear now that I have my long cardigans, and of course my three jean jackets (white, blue and blue cropped). I'm not sure what to eliminate here. I have already put the beige toppers in a box to see if I will miss them.

Any other good storage ideas? Any additional places you can see for me to edit further?

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