Tackling the Costume Closet

So I’ve finally dug in and really started my costume re-organization project.
To recap –
When I lived at my parents house, we converted a half bath into a walk-in closet once they outgrew my room. (And, I swear I used to have a picture of it where it didn’t look like crap. Like one of what it looked like when it was clean. But I can’t find it, so you get the messy one.)
When Chase and I moved into our apartment, our second room had a nice big walk-in closet that I used. Seriously, almost everything fit in there. It had built in shelves, enough room for almost everything to hang, and room for about 10 bins in the back (if you stacked them right. it was like playing tetris.)
I loved that closet, but it wasn’t enough to keep us staying in apartment. When we moved into our house last year, I lost that lovely closet and was suddenly faced with no where to put 100+ costumes.

The only places I’ve got are two regular size closets (not walk-in). One I need to use for storage of fabric and supplies in my office (and it will also be used for costumes that need to hang). The other I had to come up with some way to store all these costumes in, and a way that wouldn’t drive me crazy.
So this is what I came up with. Small bins, with 2-3 costumes a piece, each with a picture on the end of what’s inside. Small ones so they’re easy to move and reorganize (and not 20 costumes in one bin I have to dig through to find stuff). I’m using two sizes – a handful of shorter ones but mostly the taller ones. So far I’ve bought about 25 of these small bins, and tonight I started putting stuff into them.

see my blog post.

It’s a huge relief to finally be getting down to it. Since the move stuff has just been stuffed into boxes and bins and I’m worried about things breaking or tearing. I’m hoping to have all this done and put away by Memorial day. I’m excited! LOL.