Six Items Or Less

Even if (when!) I make the basement at Taylor into the perfect, beautiful laundry room, there's still not much space to store clothes. I believe I can fit in 3 or 4 freestanding clothes rods but, if a family were living here full time, that still might not be enough hanging space.

I was actively contemplating this issue when I heard about a challenge and a blog called "Six Items Or Less".  The challenge is to wear only six items of clothing for 30 days. You can see the rest of the explanation and the rules at http://www.sixitemsorless.com/ if you'd like.

This sounded like my kind of challenge - after all, I'm the one who challenged myself to do this house for free, right? So I started pondering. The prospect of only six items of clothing seemed terrifying at first. Have you even been on a trip and gotten just SICK of your clothes? But it was late July at the time and my wardrobe was very pared down already due to heat.

As I thought it through, I realized that six DRESSES could be a lot more versatile than, say, two pair of pants and four tops, for example. I chose six summer dresses: A short brown sleeveless v-neck, a long pale pink, a long black sleeveless, a short black chiffon with little white polka dots, a short black sleeveless with tiny ruffles at the neckline, and a short black and white graphic print.  (Sorry this is not a better photo but it was 6 a.m., I didn't have sunlight to work with yet, and I was too impatient to wait for it!)

I wore these six dresses with three pair of shoes (one brown, one casual black, and one dressy black) for most of August. And I loved it! I looked forward to the ease of getting dressed every morning. I usually knew, instintively, exactly which dress I wanted to wear before I even got out of bed. And I liked each of them enough that I didn't get tired of them. This minimal wardrobe also made packing to go to Enid for the weekend a breeze - throw two dresses and two pair of shoes in a big purse and go! My experiment was a smashing success!

Now that it is autumn, I am hating that I have to come up with other things to wear. I miss my six dresses!

I am always freezing in the cooler months so I'm not sure I could get by on just six items in seasons other than summer. However, I think maybe 9 items might suffice: a pair of jeans, a pair of black pants, a black long-sleeved t-shirt and a white long-sleeved t-shirt, a long brown velvet shirt, my favorite green mini-cableknit cardigan, a brown jacket cardigan, a black velour knit cardigan, a pale pink angora cardigan. I think I might try that for November. Stay tuned for photos and feedback!