HELP!! Home organization needed.

We have two kids: one boy and one girl. Still clothing can become a problem, especially during these transition times. Our closets are a good size, so I try to hang up as much as possible, even t-shirts. It’s easier to find exactly what we need in the mornings without having to dig and mess up neatly folded drawers. Each child also uses one drawer. I use shoe boxes as dividers, which help keep folded things folded. Each child has two child-size shoe boxes in their drawer, one box for socks, one box for undies. Then, their pj’s are folded in between the boxes. It’s a system that has worked for me for a long time, and it made it so much easier when they were old enough to put their own clothes away (which they do regularly now).

I suppose I’ll have to devise a new system as they get bigger, but for now this is working well.

Another thing each child has that is great is a small shoe organizer from Ikea. I’m not looking at it now, but I think it holds 7 pairs of shoes. It doesn’t go over the closet door; instead, it has ties and hangs from the bar in the closet. I also use it as a divider and put shirts and jackets on one side and jeans and shorts on the other side of the shoe hanger. I also hang clothing up in groups of like things: jeans together, short sleeves together, long sleeves together, dresses together, skirts together, etc. Unfortunately, the closet bars are too high for my kids to hang up their own clothes, but they are able to put away their shoes up to the fifth space on the shoe hanger. Having the shoes hanging keeps the bottom of the closet open for larger toys that I want concealed or my son’s latest Lego project that he’s not ready to disassemble. It also keeps the shoes away from the front door and we never have to hunt for “that one lost shoe”.

One other thing I do is purge, purge, purge. I go through my closet at least twice a year and through the kids’ closets and drawers three or four times a year and get rid of stuff. Obviously, you probably can’t do that as much since your kids are probably wearing hand-me-downs. Since my kids are different genders, we try to purge out badly stained or ill-fitting items as much as possible. 

For clothing storage, I love the vacuum bags that you can put a ton of clothing into and then suck out all the air so it stores compactly. Because I’m weird, I put my vacuum bags full of clothes into plastic tubs in the garage, so I can be sure bugs and things don’t get into our clothing. I’m actually about to get the rest of our fall stuff out and suck the air out of the summer clothes and pack them away until spring.

Organizing is one of my passions, so I hope this hasn’t been too overwhelming.

Blessings,

Lindsey

This fall I put away all but one or two pairs of shorts. We’ve done okay having a couple pairs of shorts and wearing long sleeve shirts & sweatshirts and changing into tee shirts later on warm days. I put away all the “summer” church clothes and we’ve been using pants with short sleeve shirts, sweaters as needed. I made myself crazy this spring pulling out all the summer stuff too early and not being able to fit anything in drawers. At least for me limiting the number of seasonal “transition” clothes out has helped.

Oh the lovely clothes switch! I’ve actually been working on ours the past few weeks and it’s working this year so thought I’d share!

We have 7 -6 boys and 1 girl-2 boys in one room, 3 boys in another room and our girl and baby in the other room.

My oldest two boys have a 6 drawer dresser-3 drawers each-one for socks/underwear/pj’s, one for shirts and one for pants. They are both VERY tall (the 13 year old is almost 6 feet) so their clothes take a lot of room. Their church clothes are in a drawer under their bed.

My 3 middle boys share one closet for all their clothes (except church clothes which are in my husbands dresser). We put shelves in their closet-each child has one shelf with 4 rubbermaid bins (one for socks/underwear, 1 for pj’s, 1 for shirts, 1 for pants). There are two more shelves in that closet that I use for storing stuff. So right now (weather transition time-most days we can still wear shorts but occasionally need pants) I keep their summer stuff in the bins they access. I then have their winter stuff on the top shelves (washed and ready) and I get the outfits for those few times we need winter stuff. Once we are in mostly winter I will switch and put the winter stuff in their bins and keep a few summer clothes out on “my” shelves just in case. So far it is staying neat (well as neat as a boys room ever stays : ).

My girl has her stuff in her dinky closet-dress clothes on the regular rod and play clothes hung from a thick dowel hung by a wire from the top rod (so she can reach it). For her transition time, I just have all her winter stuff hung from the dress clothes shelf so she can’t reach it. Our baby’s clothes are in my dresser (winter stuff STUFFED into the bottom drawer until I downsize his summer stuff).

The biggest thing that has helped though is limiting the amount of clothes allowed. My boys have 6-7 pairs of pants, 6-7 shirts, 2 dress pants, 3 dress shirts. My girl has 4 dress outfits, 6 play dresses, 5 play pant outfits. Their shoes are also limited (tennies, hiking boots, snow boots, airwalks/sandals, dress shoes if their tennies or hiking boots aren’t nice enough for church). PJ’s-3 for most, 5 for bedwetters/diaper wearers. This limiting is SO HELPFUL-I’ve never limited before this year but man, is there a difference!!!

We do store clothes-I have bins downstairs (one per seaon per size) as we won’t be done until God decides : ). The kids are NOT allowed to touch the bins-that is a recipe for disaster. When we didn’t have a downstairs for storage we used to store these in fruit boxes under a bed (you can store a lot under a bed).

HTH,
Rebecca
Mom to John (13), Sam (12), Jared (9), Simon (8), Jesse (5), Summer (3), Jude (19 months)

Hi Shelly,

I do not post much…..I read some and have gotten some great ideas from this forum.  I have 5 children and this is what we do……

The solution that has worked best for my family has been a family closet.  I have a walk in closet in our master bedroom, so that is where the family closet is.  There are double racks all the way around except a very small single rack for my dresses.  the kids clothes go on the bottom rack so there is room underneath to slide in baskets for socks, undoes and pj’s.  I hang just about EVERYTHING else.  I have found this to be helpful so when my 4 year old is looking for his favorite shirt  there is no plundering therefore no mess after.

I do keep containers of clothes (off season, sizes to grow into) in one of the bedroom closets.  The other kids rooms seem to stay cleaner becaue now the storage is dedicated to their stuff.

The family closet has been a huge benefit for us.  I can put clothes away while they are sleeping at night, no more piles waiting to be put away.  We have one closet downstairs by the back door where all of the kids shoes go.

I have also cut WAY back on the number of things they have (it is still prob too much)  My kids, no matter how much they have, usually develop favorites and wind up wearing the same things over and over any ways.

Once I started looking at our clothes and ‘stuff’ differently (like what is need vs want) it became MUCH easier.

I know this would not work for everyone and sometimes space may just not allow but if you can work it out I suggest trying it.  Be creative……even your laundry room can be your family closet.

I can control one area much easier than I can control closets in each bedroom.  and the door has squeaky hinges so I can hear evertime someone goes in to get something……

Laura

I second and third the advice on keeping clothing to a minimum. That is the best help to me. I also recommend hanging up as much as you can and keeping all seasons in the closet if possible. You might consider installing a second hanging bar in the kids closets and keeping cold weather on the bottom bar, for example, and warm weather on the top. I have 2 girls 12 and 9 and 2 boys 7 and 2months. As my 12yo outgrows something and it is way too big for the 9 year old, I put it in a bin in the top of the closet. As my 9yo outgrows something I put it in a bag and give it away. As my 7yo outgrows something I put it in a bag and give it away too. I feel there is too big a gap btwn him and the baby to keep clothes that long especially with styles changing so often. Now with this baby as he outgrows his clothes I’m putting them in a bin to keep (because we are hoping to have more children) but for example his entire first year of clothing would fit all into one bin. We don’t have stacks and stacks of clothes. Hope that helps. :o)