Happy new year all! The last several weeks I’ve been reading the forum but haven’t had much time to post. We’ve been working on a big house project — swapping the master bedroom and office. In the course of all that I’ve acquired proper clothing storage for the first time in my adult life and let me tell you, it’s glorious. I love peeking inside people’s closets, maybe you’ll get a kick out of seeing mine.

Photo 1 is the “before” pic — not an effective way of storing my clothing. I could never remember which bin something was in and the bins were hard to keep tidy. Also, it turns out that having two grown adults sleep in a 10 x 10 room full of textiles in a damp climate is not so great, who knew!

Photo 2 — during. Aggghhhh chaos! For most of the holidays (which are thankfully low-key and casual for us) my strategy for getting dressed was “this is vaguely clean and I know where it is located.”

Photo 3 — Our new setup! IKEA Pax wardrobes. I’m on the left, husband is on the right.

Photo 4 — inside my big cabinet. Just finished arranging this today, ahhhh so happy! (My hanging clothes will go in the room's built-in closet, with tall boots underneath.)

Photo 5 — DRAWERS! I’m thrilled. You can see I’m another aficionado of KonMari folding! (And I’ve converted my husband — he’s KonMari folding his shirts as I type this, lol.)

Photo 6 — inside my smaller cabinet. Shoes and my jewelry box. I keep wondering if my shoes feel the way I did that one time I flew business class. (“Wow, this is pretty nice…but I SO don’t belong here!”)

Now I am super motivated to up my style for 2019! I’ve also continued to ponder and experiment based on everyone’s super helpful comments on my wardrobe “clicking” thread a while back. This led to a few really good purchases towards the end of the year that I’d like to use to guide me going forward:

-Black tunic-length sweater (Photo 7). I started thinking about, what’s the simplest possible outfit that will make me feel polished when working at home? I came up with: skinny jeans, tunic sweater, some sort of lightweight and unobtrusive jewelry (short necklace, small hoops or stud earrings, my rings). I can add further embellishment like a longer pendant or a scarf when I leave the house. I run very cold, but I’ve found that this formula works for me if I wear a longsleeve heat tech shirt (also a new discovery for me) underneath. It’s great to have another outfit formula, it contributes to the feeling of variety and it’s also nice to have a release from the inevitable fuss of layers.

-House shoes — embroidered black velvet slides (Photo 8). These replace my noisy, clunky, seen-better-days wooden soled clogs (which have been demoted/promoted to run-outside-and-get-the-mail-slash-empty-the-recycling shoes). I feel a bit silly raving about, essentially, a pair of slippers, but I’ve been so happy with these! They make my at-home outfits feel “finished” if that makes sense. I find I’m also more apt to dress up a little more, even for an at-home day, knowing I can put these on my feet. This purchase made me realize that although I’ve been fairly good at avoiding buying for a fantasy life, that doesn’t quite mean that I’ve been buying for my real life. It turns out the answer to “where are you going in that?” is usually “literally nowhere,” and I need to keep that top of mind.

-Green and gold sweater (Photo 8). I feel like I’ve nailed “festive casual” with this purchase. I can wear it casually just because — like with the jeans here. Or I can dress it up (I wore it with a tulle skirt when we hosted Christmas dinner). This is a piece that feels dressy and special, but is in line with my lifestyle, which is very casual and low-key. And because it’s WARM, it’s actually practical and wearable for me.

A final insight, not tied to a particular purchase: Nothing makes me feel better about my wardrobe & style than planning my outfits ahead of time (like on a weekly basis). I feel so sheepish about outfit planning, it seems so fussy and rigid! But it’s super effective for me in terms of dressing better, outfit variety, and generally getting more out of my wardrobe. So, I’m resolving to embrace this in 2019!

Thanks for reading and thanks for all of your wonderful help and insights this past year!