My friend Christina offered to lend a new voice to Get A Grip. Her background is in Interior Design, and her current status as a bona fide New Yorker give her serious space management cred.
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Hi. I’m Christina,
and I’m a fan of the folks over at Get A Grip.
You know, there are days when I read the blog and see the Huddle Up and
I say “Amen, sister!” and there are others when I learn something new. I’m big on organization over here too, even
though we’re kind of messy. Messy, but hey, I know where pretty much everything
is. To be honest, my organization
happens mostly behind closed doors. Our
closets and drawers are freakishly neat. Most of the time.
So why am I here? A little bit of a different perspective,
some of my own organization tips, and most of it in the context of moving. You see, we over here are “movin’ on
up”. We, my little family of 3 and a
dog, are living in New York City (East Coast, represent!) and while we aren’t
moving to the East Side, we are moving “up” – 10 blocks north, to be precise,
and we are doubling our space. This move
will happen in about 3 months, and in the meantime we are trying to sell our
current home and I am obsessively planning everything ahead for the new
place. The Get A Grip folks and I
thought that sharing the experience with you, the lovely readers, might be
worthwhile. They help you get your life
organized, and maybe, just maybe, I can help with ideas to get your stuff
organized. So let’s humor each other a
bit, why don’t we?
Binge & Purge.
Clothing, that is.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a new dress. A really cute one too. I needed to hang it up, and when I stepped
into my closet I realized that not only were my dresses crammed into the dress
section, but some were forced to share hangers.
Quel horror! So the dress stayed
folded in the shopping bag, which sat on the floor of my closet. This is never good. I mean, why would a new dress want to be
hidden from view? It should be out there,
looking at me, saying “wear me!”, and not in seclusion waiting to be forgotten.
So then one fine rainy Saturday, I found it: my
Motivation. The voice inside my head was
screaming at me to go clean out the closet.
And I listened. And once I was
done I had a big pile of stuff that I wasn’t going to keep. And herein lies the problem: what to do with
it all. Sure, Goodwill comes to mind,
but that’s too easy, and let’s be honest, not always the right place for
everything. Why don’t we discuss our
options here, of where to send those old friends of yours who you are sending
out into the world.
Resale/Consignment
I have some stuff that is on the ‘nicer’ end of the
spectrum, clothes that maybe I can make some money back on. It’s not like I’m running around in Chanel
over here (I wish), but there are some “ready to wear” brands that you’d find
in the fancier sections of your local department store. One never knows – they might be worth something and don’t I owe it to myself
to find out?
One thing I have learned is that there are resale and
consignment shops for every level and price range of clothes. Even if you can make just one dollar on
something, isn’t that better than nothing?
It might seem like a chore, hauling your stuff to the shop on the off
chance they will want your stuff, but you know what? Just do it. You may have a local shop where you can do
this, or you can find a shop that is part of a larger chain, such as Plato’s
Closet (for your clothes-horse teen) or Second Time Around (for your fancy
department store stuff).
Charity shops
Goodwill and the Salvation Army are the biggies here, but
you might also look at donating your non-resalable clothing to a local church
or other charitable organization. Here
in NYC my preferred donation location of choice is Housing Works, which
provides services, advocacy, and housing for those in the community suffering
from AIDS. The shops don’t just accept
and sell clothing – they take books and some furnishings as well. (I bought our
AMAZING Danish modern dining set there for a relative steal). Bottom line, if your can’t get money back
from your clothes at a resale shop, you may as well send it out into the world
to do good for someone else.
Recycling
I read a shocking statistic that, at least here in New York,
textiles make up almost 6% of landfill waste.
SIX PERCENT! And as much as we like to tell ourselves that the stuff we
throw out is biodegradable (or whatever) the truth is that once something is
part of the landfill and is buried under other Stuff and deprived of light and
air, well, it’s just not going to break down and become on with the earth. It’s just not.
Here in NYC we are lucky to have textile recycling available
to us, and I can drop off stuff at any number of local farmer’s markets. What would you recycle? Anything you might not know what to do with
that you might be sneaking into your Goodwill bag with the hopes that they will figure it out. “Who me?”, you say. Yeah you, you know what
I’m talking about. The t-shirt with a
hole in it, or the duvet cover that has ripped at the seams, or the favorite
pyjama pants that you split the seat on thus rendering them unwearable, even in
the privacy of your own home. The
damaged stuff that still has large areas of good useable fabric, that’s the
stuff I’m talking about.
If you can find local textile recycling, then this is an
awesome option. The sad truth is that I
have seen torn-open garbage bags on the sidewalk outside of some charity shops
filled with clothing that they didn’t deem acceptable. You think you are asking them to deal with it
so you don’t have to, and they’re just throwing it in the trash anyways. This
bums me out.
Other things for the more ambitious
I can’t exactly throw up a sign and have a garage sale here
on the island of Manhattan. Sure, people
have “Stoop Sales” or hold sales in their apartments, but I just don’t think
that would fly in my co-op building.
But you suburbanites out there, this might be a great option for
you. From what I gather, yard sales can
be a lot of work, but if you’re up for it, then go for it. There’s ebay too, though I’m not sure how
effective this is for grown-up clothes.
For kid stuff I hear it’s great – put your child’s outgrown clothes up
for sale in groups, rather than as individual pieces. Or host a clothing swap! Among my friends we have little kids of all
ages and will sometimes host a swap – set up tables by size, toss your used
clothes in the pile, and pick up some new stuff in the sizes you need. Combine this with brunch and a playdate and
you’ve got a fun and productive Saturday morning!
It’s a lot of information, and maybe the thought of multiple
piles of stuff going to different places overwhelms you, but it’s easier than
it looks. So go purge that closet and
make room for some great new stuff!
You know, I’ve never figured out what is the best way to get
rid of old undies. If you figure that
one out, please let me know.
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