My dad and his helper "Hi Poppa!" she says, six thousand times! Anyway, we moved all the clothes from the kids closets and dressers to their new permanent home in our master closet. In the process I switched out summer clothes for fall, got rid of and stored outgrown/wornout clothes. I do believe I touched every piece of clothing in this house.
The kids hanging clothes are on a bar under Bob's hanging clothes, and the drawer items are in new storage containers.
Each child has one small container for socks, under.wear, and pajamas. Each child has a larger container for everything else. So far it has worked wonderfully. No bedrooms with clothes erupting from dressers and no floors covered with tried on and discarded clothes. No one coming downstairs with a younger siblings clothes on (yes, that has happened!) and no one coming downstairs with jeans and a sweatshirt on a day when it is going to be 90˚.
Each evening I can quickly grab their clothes for the next day and leave them on their dresser. Putting clothes away has been very easy too. Every little bit helps when it comes to cleaning and maintaining clothes for a family of eight!
25 comments:
This is awesome!!! I bet you did touch every piece of clothing in your house:)
I'm thinking of mine when asking these questions...at what age would they have their clothes in their room again?
My girls are rather good about their clothes...it is little man that has just a minor issue.
I wish my mom would have loved doing this for us when we were growing up.
Way to go, Poppa!
Me, again. Okay. I'm thinking that I'm going to do this for little man. Would it be wrong to do it for one and not the others? That whole adoption thing.
The girls are very responsible and I just don't see the need to do it for them.
Hmmm...what do you think?
What an awesome idea!! I try to get everything out at night for the next day... but if we run behind I am doomed to wake them up or keep them up by rifling through closets and dressers.... Plus I do laundry at night... this ends up with piles of laundry in my room because the kids are asleep and I can't put it away... I can see where this makes life very easy for you (and to put laundry away too)!!
Patty-only my oldest questioned what I was doing and why. I just said that it was going to be easier for me to do laundry and keep everything organized. I think he realizes that it does keep their room much cleaner. All three boys share a room and all three girls share a room. You can imagine it doesn't take much for 3 boys to destroy a room! The older girls were okay with their clothes - my 4yo was the big mess maker. I found it easier for me to keep everything in the same place - but if you only have one that is a messy then he probably won't even notice - you can tell now he has more space for his toys in his room :) So far it has been really great.
Yvonne-it definitely helps with those laundry nights and not waking up to piles of laundry everywhere!! Thanks for your comment.
Wow! I love this idea! I have an area in our bedroom that can become a "family closet" and I think it's a perfect solution to our laundry/clothing problem. I have already moved my daughter's dresses into my closet and blocked off her closet with a dresser. She kept going in to the closet and taking every piece of clothing down and dumping all the storage boxes on to the floor. After the third time, we just eliminated her access to the closet.
With adding another boy to an already small room, moving the clothing out of there makes really good sense. No more dressers to take up floor space. Also, "putting away" clothes is a relative term to my boys. I can't tell you the number of times I re-wash clean clothes because they were just thrown on the floor. So irritating!
You continue to inspire me with great ideas!
wow. I'm going to check out starry sky ranch's post on this. this looks time saving.
I love it!! Another advantage- I often put away laundry after the kids are in bed- with the lights off! This would be much easier.
This looks great Jen! Thanks for sharing!
I gave you another blog award! Here is the my post about it:
http://www.asliceofsmithlife.blogspot.com/2010/09/thank-you-for-versatile-blogger-award.html
Congrats!
Tracy
Awesome job! That is a great idea for a large family! Even with two children, I really had to think things through to find the best organization system for our family.
Looks fabulous! I don't have one place to keep everyone's clothes, but I manage them myself (no kids digging for stuff, generally) and it really does help. I'm so glad you were able to make this happen. What a difference.
I love reading your blog, even thou I may not always comment. You have been given the Versatile Blogger award!
http://fundayswithcuriouskids.blogspot.com/2010/09/versatile-blogger-award.html
This looks amazing, Jen! I'm going to ponder this concept at our house and check out that link. Any ideas for socks? We cannot seem to get it together with organizing socks for 7 people....
Amy & Tracy - thanks for the blog award!!
Tiffany-socks are a bit of a headache! All three of my girls are about the same size so they share socks and that helps a lot. The boys hardly ever wear socks in the summer and in the winter I usually buy different types of socks for the older boys. I know that's not helpful - but that's all I've got!!
Thanks for reading :)
I really like the idea of doing this. Not sure if you've ever seen the Duggars but they have their family closet in the laundry room. Makes so much sense. Right now its just my husband and I but we are in the process of adopting and I've thought of doing this when we have children. However, I will have to wait until adoptions are finalized as we are going through the foster system and one of the regulations is that children must have their own closets and each must have their own dresser drawers - or at least it is here in Los Angeles.
Your closet looks fantastic. I hope it works as well for you as it has for our family! God bless : )
This is a belated response, but I wanted to come back and tell you I love this idea! I have spoken with several people about it and my husband and I are considering the logistics (we were planning a makeover of our closet). Since little people are always sleeping in their room I can never manage to get their clothes put away.
Elisabeth-Thanks for your comment! I am planning to post a longer update to this, but the family closet has really, really worked well for us. I would highly recommend it. Any size family would benefit from this while children are young. Have fun organizing!
Elisabeth-Thanks for your comment! I am planning to post a longer update to this, but the family closet has really, really worked well for us. I would highly recommend it. Any size family would benefit from this while children are young. Have fun organizing!
Amy & Tracy - thanks for the blog award!!
Tiffany-socks are a bit of a headache! All three of my girls are about the same size so they share socks and that helps a lot. The boys hardly ever wear socks in the summer and in the winter I usually buy different types of socks for the older boys. I know that's not helpful - but that's all I've got!!
Thanks for reading :)
Looks fabulous! I don't have one place to keep everyone's clothes, but I manage them myself (no kids digging for stuff, generally) and it really does help. I'm so glad you were able to make this happen. What a difference.
This looks great Jen! Thanks for sharing!
I gave you another blog award! Here is the my post about it:
http://www.asliceofsmithlife.blogspot.com/2010/09/thank-you-for-versatile-blogger-award.html
Congrats!
Tracy
Patty-only my oldest questioned what I was doing and why. I just said that it was going to be easier for me to do laundry and keep everything organized. I think he realizes that it does keep their room much cleaner. All three boys share a room and all three girls share a room. You can imagine it doesn't take much for 3 boys to destroy a room! The older girls were okay with their clothes - my 4yo was the big mess maker. I found it easier for me to keep everything in the same place - but if you only have one that is a messy then he probably won't even notice - you can tell now he has more space for his toys in his room :) So far it has been really great.
Yvonne-it definitely helps with those laundry nights and not waking up to piles of laundry everywhere!! Thanks for your comment.
What an awesome idea!! I try to get everything out at night for the next day... but if we run behind I am doomed to wake them up or keep them up by rifling through closets and dressers.... Plus I do laundry at night... this ends up with piles of laundry in my room because the kids are asleep and I can't put it away... I can see where this makes life very easy for you (and to put laundry away too)!!
Your closet looks fantastic. I hope it works as well for you as it has for our family! God bless : )
Awesome job! That is a great idea for a large family! Even with two children, I really had to think things through to find the best organization system for our family.
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