Hi friends! Today I’m sharing my first big organizing project after writing about my organizing plan for 2016. My first priorities on that list are my kiddo’s closets. As I think many of you know, but maybe some of you don’t, I have 2 boys and a girl, ages 7, 5, and 3 and another little girl on the way due in June :) My boys share a room and my little one will be sharing her room with her baby sister when she arrives. Their closets are full of hand-me-downs, clothes, toys, etc. and they were/are in desperate need of some organizing! I try to go through them every season to weed out clothes that don’t fit, etc. but it had been awhile!
A few weeks ago I posted a picture on Instagram of my daughter’s finally finished big girl bed {more on that DIY to come.} In order to get her new bed to fit in her room and keep the crib in the room, as well, we had to do some rearranging, which led to putting the dresser in the closet. Which led to her closet being the first big project on my organizing list! I kind of feel like it was a game of “If you give a mouse a cookie…” Do you know those children’s books?!
So I’m sharing where it started and what I did to get it nice and organized!
BEFORE
It was getting to the point where I knew I needed to organize this closet so I was just throwing stuff in the bottom of the closet and it was getting out of control!! From the day we moved in, I put some of our photo albums on the upper shelf of this closet, and there they have lived for 4 years. This room used to be our office, so the photo albums kind of made sense to be in here, until they didn’t when it became a nursery. I was too lazy to find them a new home, so they just stayed up on that shelf. I think we’ve looked at one of those albums once since we moved into this house :( Unfortunately, now those photo albums are on the floor of my master bedroom waiting for me to get them all into new albums. I have a plan, but I haven’t had a chance to get the new albums and get the photos all in. Besides getting organized, this is my other big personal goal this year, so I’m working on it! I have a feeling this organizing list may get longer as I get organized, and not shorter!!! UGH!
There were also a lot of out-grown clothes in this closet that I wanted to give away. I had just shoved the give-aways into those Elfa drawers and the clothes to save moved to that big green bin. That big green bin now holds larger little girl snow gear and will find a new home. As a side closet note, I’m a HUGE Elfa fan from The Container Store. No one is telling me to say this, I just absolutely love their closet systems. I have installed quite a few in our homes over the years and I have done quite a few for clients over the years as well. They are easy, adaptable and fairly affordable.
I started by pulling all the clothes out and sorting the baby clothes by age. Remember, it always gets worse before it gets better, people!! I recently found some good sized clear bins at Costco that come in a pack of three and I bought a few sets for this closet and the boys’ closet, knowing they would get used somehow. They are big enough to fit a good amount of clothes in, but small enough that I can stack them up on shelves.
I went through all the out-grown baby girl clothes. Now I know that we’re having another girl, I decided to keep a lot of the clothes that were in good shape. I weeded out the ones that were stained or I didn’t think we needed to keep and sorted the keepers by age in each bin: 0-3 Months // 3-6 Months // 6-12 Months // etc.
Some bins had way more clothes than others. But this way, I know what we have before I head to the store at the start of the season or before the baby comes and get a good idea of what we’ve already got or what we will need.
I’m kind of notorious for thinking we don’t have any of one item, especially pjs. I restock our supply, and then find a ton that I have saved about 3 weeks later, after the new ones already have been washed and worn a time or two. Hopefully this system will help with that little issue ;)
I also had a big plastic bag {that HomeGoods bag} out for give-aways. When I came across an item I was ready to give away, I threw it in there before I could talk myself into why we needed to keep it for another 3 years.
I also used one of the clear plastic Costco bins for clothes that I wanted to sell. We have a cute little resale children’s shop down the street and I want to run some of our nicer things that we are ready to part with down there to get some money!
My little princess kept me company while I organized :)
So, next up, it was time to label those bins and get them put away. I have had an older version of this Brother label maker for years and it’s worked well. I labeled them on the front and side of each bin so I could easily find them. I loaded some of the older age bins towards the back and kept the 0-3 Months bin and the 3T-4T bin up front so I can easily fill that bin up as she grows out of her current clothes and the closet doesn’t become another hot mess!!!
This blue bin up top holds baby toys. I love these huggable children’s hangers. I have pink for my daughter, and a few cream ones for the baby. I hang my older son’s clothes on blue ones and the younger one has greenish ones. It makes it easier for me {and them} to see where their particular clothes are and what needs washing. Plus, I’m slightly neurotic in that I like everything to match!
Costumes are towards the back for now and there are the extra diapers and over-sized larger baby toys tucked back in there as well.
Here is her cute little dresser that started it all. I actually found this at the same children’s resale shop I mentioned above and it’s worked perfectly!
Her collection of bows are stored in one of the shallower drawers in the Elfa drawer component. I bought that drawer organizer at The Container Store as well and are made to fit in these drawers. We’ve had this drawer component since before we had kids and it’s moved to different closets over the years. That’s why I love the Elfa system so much-you can move pieces and adjust your closets easily based on your current storage needs.
I used one of my left over smaller plastic bins for clothes that we may get as gifts or hand me downs that are still too big.
Here’s a little guide to how this little closet is set up:
Those School Work Bins on the left have been such a success and I know I have written about them, but I think it was a while back, so I will be doing an updated post on these boxes soon, I promise! Each kid has one, they are stored in their closet and they have been so great for storing their art and school work over the years.
And here we are with a cleaned out, organized closet space! Makes me so happy opening up these closet doors!
So one BIG organizing project checked off my list! Feels so good to have spaces that are totally organized and functional. Now on to the 5 new organizing projects I just created because of this one!!!
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