I like to think I’m a fairly organized person, but I question that from time to time, especially when I open my kitchen junk drawer or try to find something in my kids’ closets.
I organized my closet a few months back and I have a post all about that here, but it was definitely time to address the girls’ closet. It’s a pretty good size, but it had become a catch-all for a lot of their things, especially since their room is fairly small.
They had everything in there – princess dresses, jackets and coats, stuffed animals, shoes, bows, blankets, bags, toys.. and it looked like things were going to fall off the top shelf at any moment. I’m a little embarrassed to even share the before photo, but I get messages all the time asking how I balance being a wife, mother and keeping things together all the time and the truth is, I don’t.
I do believe in balance, but that doesn’t mean balance everything at once. Some weeks, I’m an awesome mother and wife and some weeks my house is spotless instead. It’s a constant back and forth balancing act and that’s just life. The best thing you can do is find someone who understands that and marry that person. Anyway, let’s just get on with the before picture. I’ve stalled long enough.
Hoarders and I Spy books come to mind when I look at this photo.
After a quick trip to Target for bins and a huge cleanout, 24 hours later, their closet looked like this.
I cleaned out so much stuff that I was able to bring in their doll house and bookshelf and a chair – crazy! I will probably bring the dollhouse back out once their Christmas tree is put away – it’s taking up a corner of their room.
There were play dresses hanging up and also on the floor before. I really wanted to move them out of the closet so that they were easy for the girls to get to. At our house before this one, we built a stage and a wardrobe station. Since we have a smaller space to work with this time, I had to come up with a different plan.
I decided on a really simple idea and I only had to buy one thing to make it. A curtain rod. I probably have a curtain rod somewhere in the house already, probably in another hoarded closet, but I went ahead and picked one up while I was at Target. I already had the two wall mounts to hold the rod up and I had lots of extra hangers from the closet purge.
I like that you can make this as long or short as you want it to be. The girls have a lot of dresses, so many that they all didn’t make it to the wall, so we made ours a little longer. I hung it at a height that is easy for both girls to reach, so I think they will play with them a lot more now!
xoxo, Kristen
