Less is More Challenge–Master Bedroom

Yes friends it is time to launch the Less is More Challenge for May 2012. Our goal it to reduce our possessions by 20% this month. To begin we will be starting in our Master Bedrooms. I know a bit of a change for most of us. I know that for me the bedroom is often last on the list. I know that I normally start my weekly cleaning in the living room and kitchen,
I have my reasons for starting in our bedrooms though. There is a certain satisfaction and a feeling of relief when you can retire to a room that is peaceful and tranquil.
Tackling the Master Bedroom
There is no need to do all of this in one day. Our goal is to finish the master bedroom in one week.  Truth be told I did my closet and bureau  throughout one afternoon. The easy part is the math, simply count how many of each category you have and take out 20 % of those items.  But to help you out I have some guidelines below to follow.
The Closet -
We are going to start with our clothes, next to our bed they take up the majority of the space in our bedroom. To make this easy lets assume that you keep all your clothes in your closet. I know you probably do not but lets go through it. Lets be real, how often do you do laundry? I know that at my house it is a daily occurrence, having said that let’s think critically how many of each particular item do we really need. Keep in mind that you are probably wearing 20 % of your clothes 80% of the time.
I am going to make this as easy as I can for everyone. It is simple math. I only want to you to work my category of clothing at a time. I have listed them below for you. If a category does not fit you skip it! Easy Peasy. The easy math part is this take out all of your, lets say sweaters, lay them out on the bed. Count them. How many do you have?  Now look at those sweaters if you were packing for a trip which ones would you take? Yup those are your favorites and the ones you probably wear 80% of the time.
Now lets count how many sweaters you have. Let’s say you have 10, easy time to let go of 2.
My second point when it comes to clothing is how often do you do laundry a week? If you are like me and do it more than once a week, more like once a day do you really need 10 of anything?  Probably not. Most likely some of your clothes are showing signs of wear and tear, are out of date, don’t fit you well, or you never liked them. Okay it is time to tackle that closet.
Sweaters – we are going to let go of 20% of these this week, take a few minutes and pull out all of your sweaters. Count them. Really, Yes I said count them. If you have 10 sweaters, chances are you are not wearing them all. Some probably have seen better days, some are probably too small, some are only good for those Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties. Okay take a real critical look at ALL of your sweaters. With 10 sweaters you will let go of 2 with 5 just 1. Simple easy math here friends. 20% less sweaters just like that.
Sweatshirts – Okay lets face it do you still have sweatshirts from 20 years ago? I know we do. But again how many sweatshirts do you wear in a week? I don’t wear sweatshirts everyday, even if I were to wear sweatshirts everyday I don’t necessary get them dirty each time I wear them, therefore I don’t need to wash them and I can probably make do with 3 or 4 shirts tops. But lets say I have 7 sweatshirts, I would let go of one, poof 20% less sweatshirts.
 Workout Clothes/Swimwear  – Okay moment of truth here. We all have work out clothes, but are you working out? If you when is the last time you culled your workout clothes, chances are some do not fit anymore, whoo, hoo! They are too big or have stretched out, or have faded. If you participate in road races, how many race t-shirts do you have? Can you wear them all? Time to cull. I know that when I did this I was happy to get rid of some clothes that never really fit me the way I liked.
Jeans – this is an other area many of us tend to accumulate samples in. We have nice jeans, work jeans, colored jeans, jeans with bling. I will make it easy for you. Jeans can be worn more than one time before washing them. Simply hang them back up between weariings. As long as I don’t spill or get mud on my jeans, even work jeans I save them for another day. Now I live in the country so work jeans for outside work are essential, for most people we all need a pair to jeans to do yard work in. Perhaps you need 2 pairs of work jeans if you work outside on a daily basis. Most of us can make do with a good pair of dark wash dressy jeans too. You know the kind you need to go run errands or go to a kid’s soccer/baseball game. I am willing to bet many of you have more than 3 pairs of jeans though. So now is the time to look at them, are they in good shape? do they fit? Count them. Multiply by 20% and figure out which ones no longer work for you.
Work Clothes  For those of us working outside the house, do you need different clothes that are specific to your job? Scrubs perhaps, or dressier clothes than what you would wear at home. Are all of you work clothes in good shape? Do they all still fit? Time to cull. I am working on this one I have more dresses than I can wear in one week. 
Church Clothes  Okay I will say that in our family we do dress up for Church. But I will also say that the clothes are not exclusive to church, We can wear our church clothes to school/work and for special occasions. Take stock of these clothes and lets see what we do wear and does not work for us.
Pajamas – time to throw out those all ratty pj’s tops and bottoms, clean out that drawer.
Undergarments and Socks  match up the socks, go through the undergarments, do they all fit and are they in good shape?
Shoes  Our feet change shape and size throughout our lives, do all of the shoes fit? Do you wear them all? Are they in good shape? how many days of the week do we have? Do you wear more than one pair of shoes a day? Then we  probably only need 10 pairs of shoes tops. I know I like shoes too.

Don't worry if it takes several days to go through your closet and drawers. Don't worry if your spouse is not on board yet. They will soon be when they see the new space in the closet.

Remember you are doing this for you. The benefits of downsizing your wardrobe can be numerous.

Have you joined the Less is More Challenge? You can jump in anytime.
Let me know how you are doing leave me a comment below.