In my last post, I highlighted the advantages of the lack of space in a studio.
Now, for the worst part…space gets really tight when it comes to clothes and miscellaneous things like shoes and tools.

Luckily, since Matthew and I packed all of our belongings in just two small cars for our move, we didn’t have too much stuff. However, a 532 square-foot studio can feel pretty small sometimes.

If you know me, you know that I’ve been playing sports since I was about four years old. That means I have t-shirts upon t-shirts from swim meets, road races, track teams, cross country, basketball teams…really, it just means a lot of junk that I struggle to get rid of, because whether I still wear the shirts or not, there is still some sentimental value in the memories whenever I do get around to pulling them out of the dresser.
Some of you may understand this on an even deeper level than me, but needless to say, purging to give away most of these t-shirts was definitely a struggle. However, I just thought about it like this: Hopefully whoever picks it up in a Goodwill store will like the design or something particular about the shirt and enjoy wearing it even more than I ever did.

Getting rid of my sentimental t-shirts was probably harder than getting rid of my nicer clothes.
Since  I don’t really like to shop, it’s not like I get new clothes all the time. However, the problem is that I don’t get rid of my old clothes. I still have clothes I wore in high school. Granted, I still do wear most of them, but I do have a surprising amount of clothes for a person who doesn’t like to shop. So, I definitely had to work on getting rid of some of the shirts and pants I truly did not wear often. Once again, I gave them to Goodwill with the same thoughts in mind: someone will appreciate and wear these much more than I did.
Frugal tip: When getting rid of clothes, think about what you truly wear. If you haven’t worn something in the past three months, get rid of it. Start today by separating the clothes you wear each day from the ones you don’t. And definitely give them away to Goodwill! Just because you don’t wear the clothes anymore doesn’t mean someone else won’t put them to good use!

So, after Matthew and I both got rid of quite a few of our clothes, we were bound to have plenty of space right? Not in a studio, we weren’t. We did manage to fit all of our remaining clothes in the closet BUT as you can see by the pictures, it is definitely a bit crowded, even with a walk-in closet. I will likely be getting rid of more clothes down the road, but it will take me some time to realize which ones I truly do not wear anymore.

Although clothes space was definitely one of our biggest challenges in the studio, we did struggle to find places for some of our other belongings. For our t-shirts and athletic wear, we were able to put that into the built-in murphy bed cabinets. For our shoes, we were sure to go to IKEA to get a shoe hanger, but between Matthew and I, we have a lot of shoes. And we still had some bags, coolers, tool boxes, and other little things that we needed to find a space for.

Strangely, the kitchen’s cabinet is really large, so we have been using that space for storage for many of those little things + our groceries. And, luckily, we do have a lot of space in our bathroom’s closet, so we have a good bit of our things in there.

All in all, we managed to make the studio space work. What is truly crazy is that we really don’t have that much stuff, but the studio definitely makes it seem like we do!
Over the year, I’m sure we will be eliminating much of the things we don’t use just so it doesn’t look so cluttered in our closets.

Have any ideas for storage in a studio? Please feel free to let me know in a comment!

forever frugal & free,
Claire