What does your closet look like, stuffed-in clothes, mismatched-shoes, old with new, belts, pocketbooks, wallets, ties, scarves and more? Searching for clothes to wear shouldn't launch a fight inside your wardrobe, especially before the day starts. If this sounds like your closet-it's time to get organized. Feng Shui will not only help but will make clearing, cleaning and creating a new area that will transform your clothes closet into a valued space.
By removing old clothing with sizes that no longer fit, clothes shoved in the back or lying on the floor-- old dresses, trousers, sweaters, pants and anything you haven't worn for more than a year is a good way to begin. Stop waiting to loose or gain weight. If the size is not yours any longer, give the clothes to someone that can wear, whatever doesn't fit you. Sell good clothing, donate the apparel to organizations that accept worn clothing, or offer the clothes or articles to someone who needs and will appreciate them. Make three piles-- one that will be discarded--one that will be for sale-- and one to be given away. If you have to think and you vacillate about saving an article, this means that you really shouldn't keep it. Put the discarded clothes into a green trash bag-- the for-sale clothes into a brown one-- and the donated clothes into a black bag. Make labels if you use the same color trash bags.
After the old clothing and articles have been cleared-out and bagged, take out the remaining clothing, shoes, etc. from the closet and place everything on the bed or floor. Now separate the garments in color piles according to the colors on the bagua, an eight-sided-color-map used in Feng Shui:
Blues and Blacks
Greens
Reds and oranges
Yellows and tans
Pinks
Whites
Precious metal colors
Now, it's time to clean. Wipe down the shelves and vacuum the floor. If you have wooden hangers, metal hangers and cloth hangers, separate them and use the cloth hangers first-- use wooden hangers for heavy clothing. The wooden hangers should be placed on east side of your closet and metal on the west side. In Feng Shui wood equates with eastern energy and metal with western. But use metal hangers as a last resort. Remember metal hangers can mar clothing. If you need extra cloth hangers or wooden hangers wait for a sale. Replace all your metal hangers little-by-little.
Hang up all the blue and black clothing, starting at the left of the closet; arrange blouses with blouses, dresses with dresses, shirts with shirts, suits with suits, etc. Then, hang up the green clothing next to the blue & black and follow the color pattern of the bagua listed above, until you have finished hanging all your clothing. Yellow is central to the bagua; therefore, the yellow and tan clothing should be hung in the central area of the closet, next to the red and orange items. Starting on the right side, hang up pinks then whites and lastly, precious metal colors. Next, put in the shoes. If you can afford shoe racks or wooden shoe cabinets, buy some; this will keep your shoes together and you will find them much easier. If you do not have a place for shoes, label each original shoe box with a black, magic marker telling the style and color of the shoe, so you'll know what's inside each box. Stack the boxes neatly in rows of threes, labeled-sides shown. Buy see-through, plastic bins for your pocketbooks and also for your scarves. These items stack nicely on shelves and can be easily seen. Inexpensive, cardboard boxes with covers can also be labeled and used for these items, if you can't afford the plastic bins. Belts can be looped and buckled around a wooden hanger and placed on the east side of the closet. When you need a belt, just unbuckle it from the hanger.
Now, shopping for new clothes will be a pleasure, since there is extra closet-room in the space that you've created. When you awake each morning, everything will be neat, organized and coordinated, for a much easier and more efficient time spent dressing. And before you know it, you'll be arriving at your destination, whether it's for work, for a leisurely day, or for an evening out, on-the-town, with plenty of time to spare, looking not only relaxed but well-put-together. Practicing Feng Shui inside your closet will eliminate clutter and help you to create a cleaner, brighter, more organized space even behind closed doors.
Copyright 2007 by Dolores Kozielski
