THIS BLOG IS MOVING

I'm excited to announce that Simplify at Home is moving to it's permanent site at

 www.simplifyathome.com. 

 Please bookmark this new address! 

The new site will have features which will better serve my readers including the ability to subscribe to new posts, so you won't miss a single feature!  I look forward to seeing you there!

Day Five Challenge - Organize Your Closet (COMPLETE)

If you are wondering why it took so long to finish my closet, let me just say that the adoption process is not for the faint of heart. You may remember that part of the driving force behind this blog was the nesting instinct spurred on by the pending adoption of our sixth daughter.

Unfortunately we hit a fairly large hiccup in the adoption road last week. We are not new to international adoption paperwork,this being our fourth international adoption; however, last week we hit a new all time high (or is it low) for volumes of documents required to bring our daughter home. I think we conquered the new mound, and I'm back up and running with my home organizing and blog!

Our master closet is COMPLETE.

Following are some organizing ideas from my closet:

1) Use canvas bins with lids, instead of dresser drawers - see my previous post on eliminating dresser drawers in your bedroom.  Lids are ideal because they keep your clothes from getting dusty. I purchased these bins at our local Walmart. They are very economical and hold a surprising amount. I use them to hold off season clothes and lingerie.

2)  Wherever possible use hooks.  I hang my extra purses and belts on a hook in our closet.  My husband also uses hooks for his belts (and sometimes pants).  We find it is a great compromise to the floor!

3)  I organize my jewelry in canvas jewelry trays.  I also found these at Walmart.  They are great because I stack them.  They do not take up a lot of space, and I can see all my jewelry at a glance.

4)  I store my out of season shoes in shoe size plastic boxes (Rubbermaid knock-offs - about $1.00 a piece).  I like these clear boxes because they have lids and keep the dust off of the shoes.  They also allow me to see the shoes easily without removing the lids.  I store these shoes on a shelf above my hanging clothes.

 5)  I do not have the luxury of having an extra closet for my off-season clothing.  Instead I store my out of season clothes in my husband's old suit bags and hang them in the back of our closet.  I find that having just the current season's clothes visible makes it easier to put together daily outfits.  If you have problems with musty odors, you can put a dryer sheet in the bottom of the bag.

6)  And my final organizing tip is make use of over the door shoe organizers.  I actually do not use these in my master closet because I have a full length mirror hanging on the back of the closet door.  However, I do have one of these hanging in each of the girls' rooms and LOVE them! 

If you do not need all the slots for shoes, they also make great spaces for scarves, hats, gloves, tights, hoise and even small stuffed animals that you want to get off of the way.

Organizing my master closet forced me to make some tough decisions. 

Here is a list of items I finally parted with:

A bridesmaid dress that I wore in my sister's wedding 5 years ago.

   I'm taking it to the resale store this week.

Western show clothes from when I used to show horses...8 years ago.

   I'm listing them on Craigslist this week.

A wool sweater that one of my daughter's brought me back from her trip to Iceland.  Unfortunately

   I am allergic to wool and can't wear it. 

   I am listing it on E-Bay.

An evening dress that I haven't worn in years.  This one I am just giving to a local charity.

Multiple pairs of socks, t-shirts, single earrings, one pair of old jeans, one pair of shoes, and several other

   miscellaneous items.

Master Closet - Conquered!! (except for the matching hangers which will have to wait for another day.) 

Free Cheese Fondue for TWO at the Melting Pot - Aprill 11 -14

The Melting Pot is offering a wonderful special, Free Cheese Fondue for Two - April 11-14. 

To check and see if your local restaurant still has reservations available go here and then call the restaurant nearest you.  Sadly, both restaurants in the Charlotte area, have no more "Cheesy spots" available.  Hopefully your restaurants won't be as popular as ours and you will get to spend a delicious night on the town!

Thanks to Money Saving Mom for this tip.

Groupon Special - 3 DVD's Rentals for $1.00

My husband and I love to rent movies from our local RedBox.  Nightly rentals are only $1.00 which makes for a very affordable date night.  Today, on Groupon, they are running a special for 3 movie rentals for $1.00.  Just go to the Groupon site here and type in Abilene, Texas under the city search.  The special will come up and you can buy 3 movie rentals for just $1.00l.  Remember these specials are only "on sale" for 24 hours, so buy it now.

I have purchased multiple Groupon deals and have always been satisfied.  It is a great way to stretch your hard-earned dollars.

Day Five Challenge - Organize Your Master Closet

Well my youngest daughter is finally recovered from the croup, and I have no other reason to procrastinate.  (Now you know why I need this blog...accountability.) 

Our assignment for this weekend is organize your master closet.  My husband and I share our closet, so I am going to streamline both of our clothes.

If you are just joining us, we are taking the challenge from 30 Days to a Simpler Life by Cox and Evatt and also gleaning some hints from Organize Now!: A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life . 

You can check out all the previous days' posts::
Day One Challenge - Fill A Shopping Bag -  Here
Day Two Challenge - Clean Out a Junk Drawer or Closet -  Here
Day Three Challenge - Form a Buying Checklist -  Here
Day Four Challenge - Create a Serene Bedroom -  Here 
The Challenges are not contingent upon one another so just jump in wherever you would like.

Now we are ready for the Day Five challenge and here is your step-by-step guide from 30 Days to a Simpler Life on organizing the clothes in your closet:

1)  Sort your clothes into 3 piles - Recycle Pile, the Ambivalent Pile (read more about this here), and the Love and Wear Pile

2)  Put the Recycle Pile into your car to be taken to the local consignment shop to be resold or to be taken to the local charity of your choice, i.e. Salvation Army

3)  Place the clothes from the Ambivalent Pile onto wire hangers.  Hang them in the back of your closet or in another closet.  Practice living without these clothes.

4)  Buy enough wonderful hangers to hold the garments in the Love and Wear Pile.   Buy them today, if possible and hang up you the clothes you are going to love and keep. 



Jennifer Ford Berry, in Organize Now!  has another method for sorting your clothes and gives some practical tips for making decisions -

Go through the clothes and pull out everything you can see that:

1)  You have not worn in more than one year
2)  You do not feel good in
3)  Is out of style
4)  You just don't like
5)  Doesn't fit
6)  Is worn out, ripped or stained

She continues:

Remove all of your out-of-season clothes and place them in an extra closet or in a plastic container stored under the bed.

Now empty the closet and lay all the clothes on the bed or floor.  Throw away all broken or bent hangers.  Once the closet is empty, evaluate the space.  Do you need to hang any extra rods, add a belt-and-tie rack or put in new shelves?  Make any modifications you need to improve your closet's storage functions.


While organizing your closet, here are some more tips from Cox & Evatt:


1) Expand your closet's holding capacity - instantly!
Hang a space doubling rod. Add a second shelf above the main shelf.


2) Don't scrimp on hangers. Simplicity means having one style of hanger. Not a hodgepodge.
Create a special location for empty hangers at one end of your closet


3) Arrange your clothing inventively.
Arrange clothes by color - warms with warm, cools with cools, neutrals with neutrals.
Arranges clothes by type - pants with pants, shirts with shirts and so on.
Arrange by function.


4) Get your shoes off the floor
Reach up, not down, to get a pair of shoes. If you have a standard closet, place your shoes on a shelf
above the rod, and then build another shelf above them. You can store shoes in their box, which
keeps them from getting dusting. Label the boxes with the description of the shoes.


5) Confront your sock life. Ponder each pair, then edit, edit, edit.


6) Install towel bars on the back of your closet door.
Two towel bars fit nicely on the back of a closet door. Towel bars are great for hanging flat things,
like tights, pants, and scarves. You can also use them for hanging clothes when you are packing for
for a trip or planning an outfit for the next day.


7) Hang a drawstring bag for dry cleaning.
Grab the bag and go to the cleaners without having to search for clothing. To simplify, visit the dry
cleaners the same day each week. Return the wire hangers and ask the clerk to omit the long
plastic bags.


8) Create an Ambivalence Center
Put your ambivalent clothing - clothing you can't get rid of but don't really like - away from clothing
you frequently wear. Put those items in the back of your closet, in another closet, in under-the-bed-
box, or in lidded boxes. After a few months....(make a decision about these items and give them away
or put back in your closet to wear.)


Whether you take Cox and Evans approach or Berry's approach, at this point you should have pared down you clothes and have an empty closet or a streamlined closet.  This is the time to sweep and swiffel (or vacuum).  If you're really industrious you can even put a fresh coat of paint on the walls.

This is our closet.  It's not in terrible shape.  The organizing systems are in place.  I have just let the clothes get a bit out of hand.

  We have a very small master bath, so I store extra toiletries and medicines in our master closet.  One of my tasks, today, while organizing our closet is trying to figure out how to better organize all these items.

I will be posting photos of my finished project at the end of the weekend!

Quote of the Week

"We all consume significant quantities of time in the buying and then maintaining of things.  A life of voluntary simplicity and contentment, on the other hand, is opposed to the unnecessary proliferation of material possessions...At the beginning of every day we are given assignments that have eternal significance - to serve, to love, to obey, to pray.  Instead, we squander much of this time on things that very soon will leave us forever." 

Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives -
by Richard Swenson, pg. 156

Vision Forum Coupon Code

If you are interested in placing an order with Vision Forum now is the time to do it. 

They have a $25 off coupon when you spend $75.  Just type in SAVE25 (expires 2/28) at checkout to get your $25 savings

Vision Forum is one of my favorite family friendly catalogs for homeschool resources, quality books, excellent frugal living reading material and great children's imaginative play items. 

Every birthday and Christmas our girls get at least a few items from the Vision Forum catalog.

Our girls have part of the Beautiful Girlhood collection including several of the high quality dolls.  They are an investment, but one that will last for years:

I have my eyes on a few of their newer books:

Check out their website - Vision Forum.

Gap Deal - Wednesday, March 2nd ONLY

If you are in need of a pair of pants, go to your local Gap store next Wednesday, March 2nd and ask at the cash register for a 40% off coupon. 

Each Wednesday through the month of March, Gap is offering a 40% off coupon for any purchase in the store.  The sales associates have the coupons at the register.

You can pair up that deal with their current sale, buy a pair of pants and get a free shirt.  The free shirt sale is over on March 2nd.

Some of the sales associates will tell you that you can't use both deals together - the coupon and the shirt - but others will say it's "okay."  We went to our local Gap store last night and purchased a pair of jeans for Torie, our college-age daughter, and she found a shirt she loved.  The associates told us both codes would work, and they both went through the register just fine.  The free shirt offer is for a shirt up to the value of a regular priced pair of pants.

This is a pretty sweet deal if you have your eye on something special at Gap.  And the 40% off coupon can be used on sales and clearance items as well.

(The free shirt promotion is only available at adult Gap stores.  Sadly they are not offering the deal at Kid's Gap.)

Simplify Your Wardrobe

Thanks for bearing with my "silence" for the last few days as I spent time with a sick child.  Today I'm reposting a simplifying post from my personal blog. As we prepare to organize our closets, give this idea some thought.

One of my long-standing simplifying ideas is "Simplify My Wardrobe". Now I'm warning you...this one is going to be really, REALLY boring to some of you. But it works and if you ever try it you will be hooked!


Limit your base colors to 2 or 3...Let me explain:

I only buy black or denim pants/capris/skirts (and I splurged a few years ago and bought the white capris pictured above). What this translates to is I only need a few pair of shoes - they only need to match black and denim. When I shop for shirts, I can totally dismiss whole racks of shirts because I only need to match black or denim. My earrings and necklaces need to match - black and denim....you get the picture.

I can't tell you how much time, energy and money this saves me!
For those of you old enough...remember "Color Me Beautiful." Phil (my husband) spent hard-earned money to have "my colors done" not long after we were married.

Every time I went shopping I faithfully carried around my wallet of "allowed colors". It seemed like 100 colors...probably really about 36. I faithfully held them up to each rack of clothes.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with picking colors that look best against your skin tone, but I can't tell you how I agonized over this. And I'm ashamed to say how many times I went over our meager budget. At the time we were living in a single-wide mobile home, so I could stay-home full time with our 1st daughter and live on Phil's teaching salary at a private Christian school.

Finally I had an "aha" moment and realized I could put colors near my face that looked good next to my skin and the base color really didn't matter. Voila...black and denim.

Now I don't need to own a plethora of pants and capris. They are black and denim. And who really knows if I am wearing the same pair day in and day out. I own a few classic pairs. I wear them until they wear out and then I replace them. EASY!!

The same goes for Phil. He wears khaki pants to work - denim at home and on the farm. His suits are navy and khaki. The end.

It's simple and sweet.

Okay...maybe a little boring for some but it works for our family and simplifies our closets, our budget, our time and our wardrobe!

Quote of the Week

"If we don't own it,
we don't have to take care of it,
and we have more time to do what we want." 
Tapestry