I’ve been purging.
Ripping through closets & drawers & bookshelves. Donating & selling & tossing into the huge outdoor trashcan. Do we need it? Do we love it? Would we want to move it? Those are the questions I ask each item as I sift through our material life. I’ve moved boxes to donation, bags of clothing to our church, sorted through trash & donation & keep & sell with a dizzying rhythm.
Then getting on my hands & knees with my trust $2.00 Target brush & a bucket of Mrs. Meyer’s & yes, scrubbing my baseboards.
But I am struggling fiercly with my guest room closet, full of formal gowns & bridesmaids dresses & silk shifts from 2006 that are three sizes too small & impractical for the frame of motherhood. It’s been half a decade, but I still fiercly hang on to a silk chocolate shift & matching jacket from Talbots. & the formal dress from my 2000 Winterfest dance where I felt pretty for the first time.
Because it still fits & it’s classic & what if I needed a formal? If I gave it away, I’d have to go get a new one & that is just ridiculous when I have a perfectly fine formal right here. You know?
But then common sense settles – when am I going to need a glittery floor-length formal gown? Ever?
I LOVE purging. Get rid of that dress. Oh, but then I should probably get rid of the navy floor length, backless number I wore in my BFFs wedding 12 years ago, huh? NEvermind.
Can you take a piece of each dress somehow and make it into something like a scarf or pillow? Then you can donate them but still have the memories.
I went through the same purge when we moved to France! It was so hard, but felt SOOO good!! Now we only own what we truly need, including old sequined formal gowns! (duh!)
Get your formal gowns that have memories made into a nice quilt. It is what I am doing with my wedding dress, since I can’t stand the idea of selling or donating, but will never wear it again.
When you’re done, can you come over to my house. I have A LOT of baseboards and a lot of crap.
My recent obsession with Hoaders has scared me into a good purging. Clothes are hard… I feel like as soon as I get rid of a piece I’ll need it. But, this is coming from a 33 year old who still has her Senior Prom dress hanging in the closet.
I have 3 bridesmaid dresses (one from FIVE years ago, one from three, and one from two) sitting in my dry cleaning basket, surely still reeking of sweat and spilt champagne. I refuse to dry clean them until I need to wear them. Yet I haven’t needed to wear them since the weddings. And I feel bad donating them somewhere without having them cleaned, but don’t want to clean them just to donate them.
Ummmm…. Duh. You best be wearing that glittery frock if the universe decides to ever bring us together.
I’ve been doing the same thing for the past week. I never “nested” when I was pregnant…I think my “nesting” finally decided to show up 8 weeks late.
I too have been staring down my formal and bridesmaid dresses trying to rationalize a reason why I’ll need them (maybe this will be the year the husband finally goes to a military ball!!) but sadly I know the truth. I’m looking into donating them so a girl can have a pretty dress to wear to the prom.
I should tell you to get rid of them.
But I can’t in good conscious, because the other day, I was the mom with the daughter wearing her regular clothes and then my Winter Formal dress (circa 1994, because I am older than you!!) And I mean wearing it to the store.
So keep a couple of your favorites. Every mom needs good play dress up clothes. Maybe you’ll have a girl one day or a niece or one of Harry’s little friends.
I do the exact same thing! Is it beautiful, necessary, and would i want to pack this up to move it? And the mrs meyers! I scrubbed our tile kitchen floor with MM… I love when i get motivated to purge and clean. Check out my blog if u want, its a klittle blog,but i talked about purging and moving
I’ve been purging a lot of things too. the hardest part for me about stuff like that is I think “what if my daughter could wear this in the future”? because I LOVED having some of my mom’s vintage clothing to wear…maybe store it in one of those air tight bags so it’s not taking up closet space?
I’ve saved all my formals, prom dresses, and bridesmaid dresses (oh, and my sisters too) for my girls to play dress-up with them. It’s the only way I can justify keeping them…
I am a pack rat. I still have clothes from HS. And all my college formal dresses. So you know I’d say keep it if you have room. Because you never know. Also when I was in middle school we found my mom’s college dresses & they were the best dress up & then halloween costumes!
ha.. i am trrying to sell mineon craigslist. but uh to do that i’d have to take the pictures and put them on craigslist. i did just donate a ton ofour clothes anda bunch of stuff from our yard sale. i really need to overhaul the downstairs. im thinking over the winter when its too cold to do anything else during nap time.
There is an awesome chartity called the Cinderella project that takes old formal dresses and then lets foster kids cone in and choose them. Maybe they have something like that near you?
We have a place like this in Cincinnati, so I Googled it, and found this:
http://beccascloset.org/active_chapters.php
I like the idea of snagging a little piece of each dress and making something with it, then donating. And, by donating it to a shop/ organization that specializes in formal dresses, you know it will get good use again, for someone who REALLY needs it! If there’s not one in your part of town, be super ambitious and start your own!
I’m a pregnant, nesting freak right now, so when you said you were washing your baseboards, I got stupid excited about doing my own. Oy.
Ryann is starting an mother’s day out program next Thursday (she’ll go once a week). I plan to seriously purge our house once a week over the next month or so. We have so much extra crap, and I always think man, I really don’t want to deal with this when we move in a few years.
But I too struggle with the ‘I never use it, but what if I needed it?’. Some stuff has seriously just got to go.
Is it sad that purging my house is my #1 hobby? Good for you!! Sometimes creating more space physically helps to create more space mentally
I love the purge too, but my problem is that I have to stop buying new stuff to fill the void. It’s like for every bag that I take out, two more make their way in
My goal for the upcoming weeks is to tackle the pile of fabric/yarn/embroidery thread etc. acquired ~2008 when I discovered crafting blogs.
My upstairs closet is the same … I think many of us have one. Filled with memories via gowns. Weddings and formals and proms galore.
I have lost just enough weight at this point that I fit back into my pink, floor length ball gown from my senior year of prom. It’s an 8. And it makes the PERFECT Glinda the Good Halloween Costume. This year, it’s mine! the fact that it costs more than my wedding dress did is probably the second reason I haven’t gotten rid of it …
I also have a mermaid style blue tiffany gown up there … it’s to die for. It’s a 6. I may or may not ever fit back into that. But, I remember when I was a little girl, coming across my grandma’s old prom dresses and playing in them. I remember being a young tween and still doing this. I guess my reasoning is, “If we have a little girl someday who wants to play in them ….”
Not a very good reason. But I’m gonna go with it!
I’m in the process of purging my closets too, and those dresses are STILL hanging in there. I think I keep them as wishful thinking/encouragement to lose weight…maybe someday I’ll fit in them again – and won’t have anywhere to go. LOL.
But, if you ever have an opportunity to attend a fancy charity event, or whatever, are you really going to wear something out of your closet? For the once in a lifetime opportunity to get dressed up, won’t you want to treat yourself to something new (and then congratulate yourself on such a find from the clearance rack!)???
Anyway……. this motivates me to donate those bridesmaid dresses. Well,,, maybe I’ll wait until i find out if my future #2 will be a boy or girl. That buys me some years. heh. procrastination.
Glad ot know I am not the only one with dresses hanging in my closet. I have gathered up a bunch of them to donate to the local Becca’s closet charity. My mom made a lot of my sorority formal gowns… and my wedding dress so I could never part with those. I wish I could find the time to purge my house, but I don’t want to take a week off from work and “waste” my vacation time just to clean…
Save some of the dresses for some day in case you have a daughter! My DD loves dressing up in my old prom dresses, it’s too cute!
I agree with some pp mentioning charities that take formal dresses – another one is Brides against Breast Cancer – http://bridesagainstbreastcancer.org/.
I donated my wedding dress to them, they also take bridesmaids dresses and formal dresses. I say, donate! It will do someone else and a great cause some good (plus a tax write-off) instead of taking up space in your closet b/c let’s face it, you’ll never wear it again.
In the spring time there is some charity in Raleigh that you can donate old formal dresses to that give under privledged girls dresses to go to prom. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I think WRAL does it. Anyway, you could wait and donate to that! Just an idea.
Keep purging – it’s one of my favorite past times!
I managed to let go of my formals and feel good about it by donating them to a local Cinderella’s Closet. I did keep one, though, because you never know when you might need it! It’s nice to keep one in the closet to dream about that possibility.
There is a charity that you can donate the dresses to thats great. I can’t rememebr the name of it but it gives the dresses to childrens hospitals like once a year and they host a prom for the kids who wont get to go to prom (for what ever reason) good for you upon purging!
Can you PLEASE, please, please come to my house and help me purge!!! We just moved and didn’t get to purge prior because we were too busy installing a wood floor. We had to move it all with us. Now, I keep telling myself…Oh look it fits in the cabinet (closet…whatever), but I really want to have less stuff. We have too much stuff, but I can’t seem to purge! Come help!
BA sounds like you getting ready to sell the house. Good luck with the purge and whatever may come after, even if it is just a clean home.
Many, many, many years from now, you will need a gorgeous formal dress for Harrison’s wedding. And that seems like a perfectly good reason to keep it.
If you got rid of a ton of others things, I think it’s perfectly okay to keep some dresses! I also have some pretty crazy, glitzy, (probably useless) dresses I hold on to!
You’ve done such a good job purging, I think the dresses can stay for now. For reals.
I’ve been a follower of yours for a while – in fact, Harrison was still on the inside when I stumbled across your blog. But for some reason, I’ve never commented.
And this seems like an awkward post to “come out” on, but since I’m trying to get my blogging training wheels back on, & since I can totally relate to trying to purge all the stuff we no longer need, or no longer fit into, or the “maybe I’ll keep these in case I ever get skinny again” jeans – because really, I’ve had two kids…and even if I lost the weight, there’s no way my butt & hips will ever fit into low rise jeans ala Britney Spears ever again, right?
Any way, all this to say….purge, baby purge
Donate the formal and if you ever find yourself needing another one, pamper yourself and get a new one. A new dress to feel pretty in never hurt anybody 
I’ve been a follower of yours for a while – in fact, Harrison was still on the inside when I stumbled across your blog. But for some reason, I’ve never commented.
And this seems like an awkward post to “come out” on, but since I’m trying to get my blogging training wheels back on, & since I can totally relate to trying to purge all the stuff we no longer need, or no longer fit into, or the “maybe I’ll keep these in case I ever get skinny again” jeans – because really, I’ve had two kids…and even if I lost the weight, there’s no way my butt & hips will ever fit into low rise jeans ala Britney Spears ever again, right?
Any way, all this to say….purge, baby purge Donate the formal and if you ever find yourself needing another one, pamper yourself and get a new one. A new dress to feel pretty in never hurt anybody
Some event at BlogHer next year where we all pull out the floor length glittery dresses. That would be a reason to keep it. Of course assuming they still fit…
Dudette, when life hands you old bridesmaid gowns, make pillows. WITH RUFFLES.
I totally feel you with the old formal dress thing. I have a whole closet full of them! I’ll probably keep 1 or two classic ones, but the rest are getting donated to a church that has a prom for special needs kids. Hopefully some of them can feel pretty in my old dresses. But it’s true, you never know when you might need to attend that formal ball!
This is my one area where I hoard also. In my house, if you sit it down (ahem *husband* coughs) and I find it and deem it to be unecessary clutter to our lives its gone. Regular clothes, kitchen stuff, toys….if we haven’t used it in 6 months, toss it.
BUT….my wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, my HIGH SCHOOL prom dress. ALL in there and not moving. I have tons of long formal glittery gowns too, but those are for mardi gras and actually get worn once a year.
Dude lose the dresses.
It’ll be ok.
I’ll hold your hand
Get rid of the old stuff. It will be *cleansing* and therapeutic for your closet and your peace of mind.
our growing garden
My mom got rid of all my old prom dresses and I was pretty sad about it . . . until I heard that she donated them to a charity for high school girls who can’t afford dresses for prom. I felt much better about my beloved dresses being loved and used by someone else than just having it sit in the closet for years in a bag.