We have a pair of walk-in closets flanking our upstairs bedroom (a.k.a. the playroom). Even with sloped ceilings, for an old house, they are enormous. Seriously, you could fit a twin size mattress in each of them and call them bedrooms.
These closets are where we store all of our out-of-season/special occasion clothing, coats, outgrown baby clothes, baby gear, blankets, etc. We are lucky to have them.
But lately, the closets had begun to look like this:
and this:
Not so pretty or functional, obviously. The closets are wider than I can fit within the photo frame, but you get the idea. Dumping ground. (Or grounds, I suppose.)
I’ve been meaning to tackle this for a while, but the smell of spring in the air is motivating me to purge and organize like never before. (This is just one area in the house I’ve been working on. Stay tuned for later developments.)
Before stuff was strewn about with no real organization, so I decided that one of the closets would be dedicated to baby/kid clothing and gear and the other would be clothing, blankets and extras.
My initial plan was to empty both closets at once, but emptying the first one pretty much filled all the free space I had to work with. It’s amazing how much stuff you can cram into a tiny space.
The shelving systems currently in the closets were not installed particularly well. They don’t make the best use of space either. Someday, when this is someone’s bedroom, I will paint over that ugly beige (looks better in photos than in person) and install better shelving in a smarter configuration. My someday list is certainly growing.
Truthfully, there wasn’t a whole lot that didn’t belong in these closets; it was just not organized well. But I did find a lot of empty cardboard boxes. Apparently, I had been hoarding every giant stroller and car seat box that ever came into the house. Why? Better things to do than organize, I suppose. Those went easily and cleared up quite a bit of space.
Check out the before and afters! Closet #1, you’re up!
These closets don’t look like pages from the Container Store catalog, but everything is organized. I know where to find things. And I can actually walk into the closets. (A crazy thought.) Considering I didn’t spend anything on organizing them, I’m pretty happy with the results.
Check back later this week for part two the closet organizing saga where I’m tackling the baby clothes.
