Wednesday, January 30, 2008

WFMW - Kids Closet Organizing


I just love Wednesdays because I now have a reason to finish clearing out the clutter in my house. Lately, I've been sharing the few organizational tips that have worked for me. By the time I'm done with this series of tips, you will think that I have a spotless house because that's all I'm showing you. Really, though, all around the nice area is clutter, clutter, and more clutter. You don't think I'd take a picture of the clutter around the organized part, do you? Of course not! That is why I love Wednesdays. The clutter surrounding the organized part is slowly receding. Hopefully, in time, I'll find tips that work for me all over the house and not just the current sections and then I can post those too. For now, I'll stick with what already works for me. Afterall, this isn't called "Doesn't Work for Me Wednesday."

Up today is my children's closet. We have a somewhat unique situation in that we have a large, walk-in closet in each bedroom. Each closet has tons of shelves so we've never needed dressers for the kids. While I realize not everyone will store their kids' clothes on shelves like we do, some may have a shelf or two on top that needs some ideas or you can adapt the idea to another area of the house. Perhaps you'll see this idea and love it so much that you are inspired to install shelving in your kids' closets and do away with dressers so that they have more room to play. Maybe. Probably not. Either way, I've learned (the hard way) not to assume that I'm the only person in the world that has a certain problem.

My previous problem was that my nice, neat, folded piles of clothes would topple over whenever one of my children tried to remove the item that they wanted. Of course, being children, they wouldn't properly remove the item to prevent the toppling over nor would they fix the pile after it did topple. So, I came up with an inexpensive solution thanks to Organizing Junkie: dollar store baskets!


I now use baskets from the dollar store to organize my children's clothes. Each basket holds something specific. This photo shows my daughter's side of the closet. It looks like a lot but it really isn't. Each basket only holds a few things. Her baskets (from left to right and top to bottom) hold the following: swim class stuff, gymastics class stuff, tank tops, t-shirts, non-denim shorts, denim shorts, capris, soft pants, pants, jeans, pjs, and old daddy t-shirts (used as pjs). As you can see from the list, we do not put away seasonal clothing. My son has eight baskets: swimming stuff, taekwondo stuff, sweatshirts, sweatpants, shorts (2) and pants (2).

We've had this set up for several months now and it has proven itself to work very well. My kids always know where to find certain items of clothes and they can put away their own laundry easily (they are 8 and 6). Best of all, no more messy, toppled-over piles of clothes.

Head over to Rocks in My Dryer for a ton tips from other participants or visit Organizing Junkie for some organizing ideas.







6 comments:

Laura said...

Now that's what I'm talking about! It looks so wonderful that I just sat here and stared at it for quite some time. So pretty!!!

Thanks for the fix!!

Michelle Olsen Sasak said...

That looks great! Ours is a hodgepodge of dressers and milk crates, and incredibly ugly, but it works. Yours is way nicer to look at :)

Mamabug said...

Are the clothes folded too? That's what I am having trouble with. I gave up and just let them stuff it in the drawers. We use a plastic 5 drawer things on rollers.

ttelroc said...

oooh oooh oooh, I did this in the garage! We had tall metal industrial-ish shelves that had the industrial wire shelves - so I needed to creatively store the little stuff. I found that I could get 10 baskets on one shelf. Those 10 baskets took care of nearly all of the small items in the garage.

This is a great idea for any shelving system that needs that extra push to get neat & organized.

Have a Great Day!
Kristin

Angela S said...

For our second Christmas my husband got me a label maker. Sounds like a strange gift but I've loved it. Any area we can, it is labeled for everyone's sake. You might look into the basic $20 dymo hand held unit. I just got it free after rebate at staples two or three months back. Then you can label the baskets and make it even easier on the kids. It looks great, good job!

mom2triplets04 said...

OMG this is amazing. I so am going to copy your idea. Thanks so much for posting pictures. Now if only I can get some extra time to get to the dollar store!