Home: Closet Organization

If there's one thing I miss the most about our old place, it'd have to be the walk-in-closet. It was spacious, bright, and became my little sanctuary. When we found out we were pregnant with Aubrey we both knew, however, that our one bedroom apartment wouldn't be big enough to accommodate us, our dog, and a newborn. So we ended up moving back to the city, in a 2 bedroom Victorian flat built in 1912. It's got a huge backyard, 2 car garage, long driveway, washer / dryer, and an updated kitchen (which in San Francisco is already a major win). The one drawback, however, are the bedroom closets.

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As much as I get a high out of organizing challenges, this one continues to kick my ass. Since we've moved in, I had no choice but to get extremely creative, practical, and have a somewhat minimalist approach when it comes to organizing our clothes. One of these days, I'll blog about how I managed to do it all with my wardrobe (expect a 3+ series) but for now, let's start with the girlies.

One of the issues I had with organizing their clothes is making sure they each had their own drawers so not to confuse their clothes together (after all, my husband DID put our dog's tee on Dani one time so with that being said...). Eventually I got tired of always having to separate their things after each laundry load, not to mention, constantly reminding my husband which shirt belongs to whom, and etc. To make things easier, I decided to just combine everything together. After all, they are practically the same size and once less step for me to do after each laundry load. I once heard that its useless to hang baby clothes. Just buy drawers and call it a day. However, having two baby girls, with dresses for daysss, I needed them to be hung and organized. Being folded in a drawer would just make me forget about them AND take up drawer space. Their closet, however, took a beating with old and new baby clothes mixed in together, house linens stored on the shelf above, old toys hiding in the bottom. I decided to maximize the space that we had and try and make things more practical for us.

Before

I felt that there was so much 'dead space' in between the dresses and the floor. There were several bins but nothing was really organized and eventually things just started to get lost. 

 After

To eliminate the dead space and maximize the storage area, I purchased a Threshold double hanger closet organizer from Target (similar). I organized the dresses by color and hung all coats and jackets on the bottom. All of their hooded jackets are on a over-the-door organizer (found here). 

The girls' shoes are in a bin by the front door but I separated their boots to free up more space in the bin. I also removed all of their old baby clothes and swaddle blankets (that I wanted to keep for memory's sake) and stored them in the garage. The clothes that they still have yet to fit in, however, are in the bottom middle bin. Blankets are in an open bin to the left and diapers to the right. 

I had this Ikea storage organizer (similar found here) before we moved in but since I ended up not using it, I placed it in the girls' closet instead. It houses their hats, first aid kit, washcloths, bibs, and burp cloths.

On the top shelf, I placed all their toys that are on "rotation". I like to put some toys away where they can't see so their playroom doesn't get even more crazy. Plus after a month or two in "hiding", Aubrey looks at it like its brand new. I also placed shoes that she can't fit into yet on top, out of the shoe boxes so I'd remember them.