Set up your kids closet to keep little clothes, toys, and accessories organized.
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Over the past year and with baby #3 joining the family, we’ve done a few quick room switcharoos. In the exhaustion and chaos of newborn life, we didn’t worry about organizing much (or at all …). We just put up a bunk bed in one room, crib in the other, moved the two oldest to the bunks, baby in the crib once he was ready, and left everything else as it was. Needless to say, both closets have been a mix-match of kids’ clothes, onesies, baby gear, and ALL the sizes of diapers. They’ve been on my to-organize list for months. As I’m finishing up the the two oldest kids’ shared forest room, I figured it was the perfect time for some closet revamping – the final piece of their new room before the big reveal.
Before
I didn’t go too crazy with built-ins since they’re difficult to remove and kind of lock you into one way to use the space. I love the look of built-ins, but, in my opinion, they’re not always the most practical for the long term.
There was a pretty good, simple closet system already in place, so I just modified it a bit to make it work better for two kids and allow it to grow with them.
Here’s what I started with:
The Revamp
First, I cut the bottom of the middle cubbies off with a Dremel Multi-Max (a very handy tool for making flush cuts like this). Then I took out all the shelves along that right side and removed the bottom two sets of cleats. My goal here was to open up the bottom of the closet and make it more symmetrical.
All the nail holes were still exposed from when this system was originally put in, so I went through and filled all those, filled holes from the old shelf cleats, and gave the closet a fresh coat of white paint. Honestly, the nail holes are probably no big deal since you never see them. I mean, this is the inside of a closet after all. But I always feel like the project is only 95% done when I don’t complete all the finishing touches, so I went ahead and did it.
While the side shelves were out, I gave them a quick sanding and stained them to match the rest of the wood furniture in the room – stained with pre-stain, gel stain in chestnut, and sealed with polycrylic.
Time to Organize
I put the shelves back in place and added bunch of baskets and bins to help keep things organized.
I found these cute twisted paper rope baskets at Target for the center cubbies. Let me just say, most baskets seem WAY overpriced. These are not. They’re a steal, and I highly recommend them.
I grabbed a few plastic bins to store small toys like Legos, MagnaTiles, K’Nex, Lincoln Logs, etc. on the side shelves. I just put one on each shelf for now, but if I turn them the other direction (90°) , I could definitely fit two or three side-by-side per shelf. I’m planning to go grab more when I get the chance – you can never have too much toy storage, amiright?!
I love these cloth baskets from Amazon for the top of the closets. If you’ll notice, that top shelf is placed higher than in a lot of closets. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but it’s actually a great use of vertical space and leaves the entire bottom of the closet open. Most the closets I’ve seen have that top shelf about 6″ lower. The cloth baskets are great because they have a little bit of give in them which makes it easier to get them up there between the header and shelf. I may own like 15 of them for various different closets around the house. Maybe.
Now, I’ve heard good things about using velvet hangars in kids’ closets to help keep everything on the hangars, but I just went with the standard plastic ones from Amazon and they’ve been working great. They’re the perfect size for their little clothes.
Lastly, I fixed up a couple IKEA Rast dressers and moved them into the bottom of the closet – one for each kid.
After
Here it is now:
I’ll be honest, I may have considered putting their closet off until later so I could wrap the room up a little faster. But the closets make such a HUGE difference in the final flow of a room. If the closets are decluttered and organized, the rest of the room is easier to keep decluttered and organized.
I put off the closets in our last house for wayyy too long. For some reason, I didn’t think they were that important and just wanted to keep moving on the “big” projects. It wasn’t until I went back and took the time to make all the closets nice & pretty that I realized how big an impact they make. I swore I’d tackle closets right away if I had the opportunity again.
So here we are. Keeping my promise to myself.
And it was worth it. 10/10 recommend. Everything has a place – clothes, dress up jewelry, shoes, accessories, extra bedding, toys.
Here’s the side-by-side before and after:
I mean, this is probably the nicest it will ever look haha 😉 But the new baskets, bins, and dressers do make it easier to clean up, and it stays more organized than it used to. I call that a win!
The “before” wasn’t bad by any means. This revamp just helps it work a little better for two kiddos right now. And I’m happy that this closet can grow with them easily. I left the long hanging rod on the right side so there’s a spot for longer dresses in the future, if necessary. I also figure we can add another hanging rod with a bracket under that bottom shelf if we take the dressers out, or use that bottom space for shoes.
How do you organize your kids closet(s)? Let me know in the comments or tag me on Instagram @terrace.place. I’m always looking for new & improved ways to wrangle the chaos!
Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
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| Tylynn |