It's All Too Much Read online

  Set it Up

  Refer to your Room Function Chart and have everyone sign on.

  Establish zones for the different activities that take place in the master bedroom.

  Remove what doesn’t belong in the room.

  Make it Happen

  A little romance

  Consider increasing those aspects of the master bedroom that add to the romance and discarding anything that doesn’t enhance the idea of an adult retreat and haven. This may mean making the room less of a media center and more of a relaxation zone, less kid central and more adult leisure. I have seen master bedrooms used as craft rooms, home offices, scrapbooking centers, and playrooms—none of these is compatible with the focus and function of a master bedroom. When the purpose of the room is lost, clutter inevitably follows—do not let this happen to one of the most important rooms in your home. I promise that the calm you create in this space will be returned many times over in your relationship with the person you love the most.

  DEAR PETER:

  My husband and I were in a rut. We have three kids, three jobs between the two of us, and every night it’s all we can do to weave through the piles of laundry and toys that form a maze on the way to our bed. We shove stuff off it and collapse, then start again in the morning. Sometimes it’s funny—like when my husband woke up with an imprint of a Pokemon action figure on his cheek—but most of the time I feel like his sexless automaton roommate.

  Finally, when his parents offered to take the kids and give us a weekend alone, I decided we’d tackle our bedroom. My friends thought I was crazy—that we should be at a spa relaxing—but I’d had enough. Out went the toys. Out went the video games, laundry, garbage bags of clothes that didn’t fit in our closet. I put a sign on the door that said “No Toys Allowed.” The kids are always welcome in our room, but they can’t bring anything with them.

  We may have lost one romantic spa weekend, but we got our bedroom back. And with it…well, I’ll spare you the details.

  The bedroom furniture and your clothes can stay—all else goes

  You heard me: the bedroom furniture and your clothes. That’s it. Take a deep breath and stay with me for a moment here.

  I was recently talking with a journalist who was writing an article on clutter in the bedroom. We got to talking, as is usually the case, about the personal clutter issues she faces. Apparently she has always been considered “the organized one” and her boyfriend has never been very committed to keeping their home clutter-free. Last weekend she decided to clean out the closet in the master bedroom, get rid of clothes she no longer wore, and reorganize the space. When it was all done, she just stood in there for about ten minutes enjoying the feeling that it gave her. She noticed that when she got dressed for work the next morning she felt calmer and more focused. More amazingly, her boyfriend conceded that he felt the same way. This end result—which went beyond just being able to easily find what they wanted to wear—really surprised both of them.

  For this sense of calm and well-being alone, you need to commit to getting your master bedroom in order. If your bedroom has become a storage area, or if it’s a place where you wake up in the morning feeling more tired than when you went to bed, then it’s time to turn things around. Imagine the room clean and set up to be an area for you to relax and recover from your day. How does what’s in the room serve that purpose? What takes away from it? You’re going to have to clear out everything that doesn’t serve that function. Once you do, will you have room for a comfortable chair or even a small chaise lounge? Is the lighting relaxing enough to set a romantic mood? Do you envision quiet background music playing as you read in a corner chair or before going to sleep? Get rid of anything that does not set the right mood. Make the master bedroom your place and commit to keeping it that way!

  Where does the rest of it go?

  There you have it. The first step to conquering the master bedroom is to get rid of stuff that hinders your ability to relax and doesn’t serve the bedroom’s relaxing, romantic function. Naturally, it can be tempting to keep things in your bedroom that don’t serve its function. Maybe it’s the only place in your house where you have room for a desk. It may not be ideal, but it’s practical. I respect your realism…but no. I have to put my foot down. Put your relationship first. Preserve your sense of peace. Enhance your sleep. Find another place for it. Even if you live in a studio apartment, you must create a separate, sacred space for your bedroom. Put up a screen or a curtain. Use a bookshelf to create a wall if you can’t afford to have one built. This is too important to ignore.

  Work Through the Zones

  The critical zones in most bedrooms are the same: sleeping, relaxing, dressing, and storage for clothes, shoes, accessories, and off-season garb. Now we’re going to tackle those zones one by one.

  You’re not fifteen anymore—make the bed!

  Once you’ve cleared your bedroom of other functions, it’s time to focus on enhancing the feelings of calm and space that help you relax and enjoy this room. First things first: the bed. It’s a zone in and of itself—the sleeping zone. Remember how your mother used to tell you to make your bed? She was right! Making your bed may seem like a small thing, but the bed anchors the room and sets the tone for the whole space. As with many things that have to do with clutter and organization, you need to create the right mood and set the feel in your bedroom. A well-made bed does this by encouraging order and inspiring calm. You know how nice it is to walk into a hotel room with fresh sheets and a tightly made bed with hospital corners? Bring that feeling home. At the end of the day, who wants to climb into a rumpled mess? It’s always better to climb into a neatly made bed. So make this part of your daily commitment to the sanctity of your bedroom.

  The bed is flat, especially when made, and that flatness is tempting. Do not let your nicely made bed be anything other than an invitation to turn in for the night. Your bed is not a storage place. It is not a laundry basket. It is not a toy chest.

  Clothes

  Clothing clutter is probably the single most common problem that I encounter. Paperwork and kids’ toys often come a close second, but it’s those mounds of T-shirts, racks of dresses, parades of pants, multitudes of shirts, and millions of single socks that keep me entertained the most.

  Clothing is inexpensive in this country and we are constantly assailed with the newest look, the latest fashion, and the coolest accessories, plus, we’re tempted by endless clothing sales and deals. On top of that, we have different sets of clothes for different seasons. Add it all together and you’ve got a sure combination for excess. In a bedroom, clothes are always the main problem. Here’s how to dramatically reduce the room that clothing consumes and the stress that clothing clutter inevitably brings.

  Take stock

  You have a limited amount of space in your closets. The number of outfits and the volume of clothing need to be tailored to this space. Again, you have to deal with the simple math. You cannot reasonably hang one hundred dresses in three feet of hanging space—not that many people haven’t tried! Look closely at how much space you have for folded items, for short- and long-length hanging, for underwear and socks, for ties and scarves, for the storage of off-season items. The clothing you are left with at the end of this process must fit reasonably into the space you have. When it comes to clothes, it is seldom an issue of not enough space—there is never enough space. The real issue is simply too much stuff, and that’s where we need to look for the solution to the clothing clutter.

  But it was such a bargain!

  Every single time I help organize someone’s closet, I find clothing that still has the original sales tags on it, clothing that has never been worn. When I ask about it, the response is always the same: “It was such a bargain, I couldn’t pass it up!” A bargain. It’s hanging in the closet, unworn. Please explain to me how exactly that is a bargain? If you have unworn clothes that have been in your closet longer than six months, you should either give them to a worthwhile charity o
r sell them online where they will fetch the best price. Get them out of the closet and clear some space for the things you love and wear.

  The 80/20 rule

  We wear 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time. Shocking but true! Many of the clothes in your closets are either never worn or worn so seldom that you would barely notice if they disappeared. In my experience, there is no such thing as a closet without some clothing that was bought on an impulse, hardly worn (if at all!), and which now has a fine coating of dust. True? If you recognize yourself here, then you really don’t need me to tell you what needs to be done.

  You don’t need me to convince you, though—let your clothes tell you themselves. One very effective way to identify what should go and what should stay is the Reverse Clothes Hanger trick. Turn all of the clothes hanging in your closet so that the hangers face back to front. For the next six months, if you wear an item of clothing, return it to the closet with the hanger facing the correct way. No cheating. If you try it on but decide not to wear it, make sure you put it back with the hanger turned backward. Be prepared for a shock, because after six months you’re going to look at which clothes are on hangers that are still facing in reverse. These are the clothes you have not worn. You should seriously consider getting rid of them all.

  Lose the losers, keep the winners

  Since clothes can be so cheap, we tend to buy them spontaneously without a lot of thought. You see a bargain or a sale and you “have to have it” because it’s such a great deal. The criteria for the clothing you should keep are really clear. You should only have clothes in your closet that:

  you love

  fit you well now

  make you feel good when you wear them

  people compliment you on when you wear them.

  What is the point of clothing that doesn’t suit you or flatter your figure or garner you positive comments? Just because you own them doesn’t mean you have to hold on to them or to wear them. Don’t dress for the life you have—dress for the life you want! Get rid of the clothing that doesn’t match your vision and clear some space to see what you have. Give you and your clothes some room to breathe and you’ll feel great when you go to your closet to choose what to wear. Enjoy the positive feedback and compliments from wearing clothes that suit you and that reflect the new, uncluttered, organized you!

  Wish clothes

  I wish, I wish, I wish. “I wish my butt was smaller!” “I wish I could lose twenty pounds!” “I wish I still had the waist size I had when I played football in college.” The fact is that almost everyone I have worked with has had “wish clothes” in their closets. Sometimes it seems like there are acres and acres of wish clothes! Of course I’m sympathetic to these hopes and aspirations, but take it from me, wish clothes exist for only one reason—to mock you! Every morning you open your closets and there they are, staring at you and quietly smirking. Well, now is the time to end their reign of mockery and terror. You need to gather up all the clothes that no longer fit you, every item that you look at and think, I wish this or I wish that, load them into your car, and immediately take all of them to a charity. Wish clothes no longer have a place in your home.

  I can already hear your objections. “What if I lose weight?” “What happens when I am a size eight again?” “But I paid good money for these!” “But I’m going to start exercising soon!” Listen to me. If you are on a sensible diet and exercise program, it will take time to get back to your ideal size and weight. Be patient with yourself. When you get to that weight—reward yourself. Buy some clothing that you love and that is in style. No one wants to see you in parachute silk sweats from fifteen years ago. If you absolutely must, keep one wish item as a source of motivation. As for the rest—let them go and don’t think twice about them.

  Keep like things together—color and style

  A couple of years ago I was helping a woman tame her closets. When we had sorted all her clothes, we discovered that she had sixteen nearly identical black silk blouses. She had so many clothes in her closet that she simply forgot what she had purchased and so when she saw one more fashion “must-have” on sale—the chic black silk number—she snapped it up. Sixteen times!

  It helps a lot to keep similar clothing items together in your closets and drawers. Sweaters on one shelf, T-shirts on the next. Hang your jeans and long pants in one area and your shirts and coats in another. This will help you to easily and quickly see what you have and to efficiently consider your outfit options. No more standing paralyzed in front of your closet with no idea of what to wear.

  It may sound extreme, but it can also help to color code your clothing. Don’t dismiss this idea too quickly. If you place like items of the same color together, it can be a real surprise to see how many items you purchase that are nearly identical. This is especially true of shirts, T-shirts, and pants. We tend to like a particular style and color of clothing, almost without realizing it. Color coding quickly enables you to see how much duplication you have in your wardrobe and how little you need to purchase of similar items in the future.

  T-shirts

  There are too many free T-shirts in the world, and the problem with T-shirts is that once they come into your closet, they never seem to leave. Time for that to change. Place all of your T-shirts on your bed. Arrange them into like colors. Chances are you have a lot of T-shirts of the same color—and I’m guessing it’s white. Remember that you can only wear one T-shirt at a time! How much space do you have for your T-shirts? How often do you do your laundry? How many do you really need? Start by getting rid of one T-shirt for every three or four that you keep. Or decide on a reasonable number of each color—maybe four of any one color. Cut down the total number of T-shirts using either method. Do the same with your shirts.

  And your pants.

  And your skirts.

  Shoes, shoes, and more shoes

  When I help people handle their clutter, the most trouble I ever have is when I try to come between a home owner and his or her shoes! Trust me, people completely lose their minds when you push them to cut down the number of shoes they have in their closets, or under their beds, or in the spare bedroom, or even (as in a couple of cases) stored in ten boxes in the garage! All reason disappears and things get very ugly, very quickly. There are, however, some good strategies for downsizing in the shoe department.

  First, bring all of your shoes into an open space. Your bedroom may be best if you have the room; if not, try the family room or somewhere similar. In extreme cases, the backyard will do the trick. Line the shoes up in pairs, with similar shoes together—a line for black shoes, one for gym shoes, one for hiking, and so on. Then quickly go through the lines, discarding those shoes you no longer want or wear. Done? Good. Now go through the whole lineup again, this time discarding unnecessary duplicates. By this I mean multiple pairs of the same kind of shoe—two pairs of running shoes; two pairs of black flip-flops. You get the idea.

  When you feel you have done as well as you can, go back into your closet and estimate the number of pairs of shoes that will reasonably fit into the space you have. If you still have too many shoes, try discarding one pair for every five pairs you keep. Continue this process until the shoes you have fit into the space you have. Finally, remember—from now on, to avoid ending up in the same situation, when you buy a pair of shoes, you have to discard a pair of shoes. It’s simple—one in, one out.

  Socks

  I was recently helping Jan and Thomas organize their master bedroom when I came across two large black garbage bags filled with socks in the back of their closet. Jan was immediately embarrassed by my find. It turned out that the bags were full of single socks because it seemed that every time they did their laundry, a sock or two would simply disappear. The two garbage bags were stuffed with five years of orphaned socks!

  When I asked Jan why she kept the single socks, she said that she was worried what she’d do if a matching sock ever turned up. As if! I made a deal with Jan that whatever socks she
couldn’t match there and then we’d throw out. Was it worth keeping those two bags for the pair or two she managed to assemble? I think you know the answer.

  Empty your sock drawer onto your bed. Discard any single socks, any that are torn or that are soiled. Fold pairs together and only return to the drawer the number that will reasonably fit. You only have two feet and there are only seven days in a week. Nobody needs a drawer overflowing with socks.

  Underwear

  Just because it is out of sight doesn’t mean it should be unsightly! Get rid of any underwear that is clearly past its use-by date. Spare me the details, just do it! Don’t keep bras that don’t fit just because they were expensive. Even pantyhose go out of style. Get rid of hose, tights, slips, camisoles, and other under-garments that you never wear.

  Your bedroom is the most private room in your house. Sometimes that means it bears the brunt of your clutter. It’s tempting to hide your mess behind closed doors, but don’t forget that the bedroom is the scene of your most intimate, vulnerable moments. Don’t let it be overrun with conflicting functions. It will inevitably take a toll on your psyche and your relationships.

  Dressing

  We all have moments when we try on multiple outfits before deciding what to wear. Don’t let your discarded outfits accumulate on a chair or dresser. Put them away as soon as you reject them. Better yet, if you’ve taken something off because it doesn’t look good on you, don’t bother to hang it up again. Move it straight into your giveaway bag.

  When you change after work or before bed, make sure you rehang your clothes or put them in the laundry—nothing should be left on a chair or a dresser or the floor.