How I Organize My Kids' Rooms

You all know how I LOVE some organization, right? Well, one of you wonderful readers wrote to me, asking how I organize my kids' rooms--specifically their clothes, shoes, and books. In the past, I've mentioned a few ways I keep the kids' bedrooms organized, but it's been a while (or perhaps never) that I've written an entire post on the subject.

Before I launch into "how I keep my kids' rooms organized," I should mention that our house has three bedrooms. Rachel and Jemima share the "pink room" because almost everything in that room is pink) and Matthias and Caroline share the "owl room" (named for the owl-covered bedspread). Because I generally organize the "owl room" the same way as the older girls' room, I thought I'd just focus on the latter for now.

Here is Rachel and Jemima's shared bedroom.





Now you understand fully why we refer to that bedroom as the "pink room."

As you can see, each girl has a dresser of their own, but honestly, they could share one dresser. Not only are they getting to the point where they are almost the same size, neither one of them has a ton of clothing.

They also have built-in shelving in their closets, but the majority of their clothing is kept in their dresser drawers.

The top drawer holds their pajamas (1-2 pj outfits each) and underwear.

The second drawer holds shirts (7-10 each).



The third drawer contains jeans (2-3 pairs, though they never wear them), skirts (5-7 each), and leggings (4 each).



The fourth drawer is for their "church" items, such as stockings or dressy sweaters.

The girls wear the same basic outfit every single day: shirt, skirt, leggings, and I've tried to buy items for them that they can mix-and-match to make multiple outfits. We also do the laundry every day but Sunday, so they don't need as many items.

I'm a big advocate of boxes or baskets (found at the dollar store or Goodwill) for smaller items such as hairbands (which we keep on top of the dresser), or stockings or underwear (kept in baskets inside the drawer).

Moving on to the girls' closet.



We hang the girls' jackets, play sweaters, and dresses.

The baskets are for the girls' scarves/hats and their shared socks.



This is the girls' shoe basket.



We generally have a no-shoes-in-the-house policy, so as soon as the girls come inside, they must take off their shoes and return them to this basket.

For those of you who are curious as to what types of shoes the girls own, and how many pairs, here's the girls' shoe inventory!

Winter:
one pair of snow boots
one or two pairs of general-play-outside boots
two pairs of church boots: one black (or silver), one brown

spring/summer:
one pair of cute flats
two pairs of flip-flops or sandals
one or two pairs of church sandals

Matthias has a small shoe box in his room, too, but his shoe inventory is VERY simple: one pair of flip-flops, one pair of play shoes, one pair of church shoes.

What about the kids' toys and books?

Generally, the kids don't keep toys in their room. They're allowed to keep a few books on the shelf in their closet, because there are times during the day that they sit and read, but MOST of the books are kept downstairs on a small bookshelf.

I know I'm a bit of a minimalist, and this sort of thing isn't for a lot of you, and that's okay, but honestly... we don't HAVE very many books. All the kids' books are kept in one basket, on the small bookshelf that keeps our DVDs, books, and photo albums.

I'm trying to collect some classic kids' books (like the Little Golden books!), which I'd be happy to read to the kids over and over. But as for the other "just okay" books, we switch them out a lot. I'll buy books at a yard sale, or consignment sale, and then re-sell them a few months later. We also borrow books all the time, so the kids are continually getting to read new stories, while occasionally hearing the classics we keep downstairs!

Which brings me to another aspect of organizing kids' rooms, and that is... clothes storage. I've gone back and forth on how many clothes to store. It was easy to keep all of Rachel's clothes for Jemima, because they were so close in age, but after having a different gender, I began re-thinking how many clothes I really wanted to store.

At this point, I'm only keeping clothes about 6 months-size in advance, and almost all the rest, I'm selling at consignment sales or our annual yard sale. I'm doing this for four main reasons:

1. I don't like storing stuff I'm not using. I had several totes full of clothing all the way through 3T (which Jemima had grown out of), that I wouldn't be opening to dress Caroline, for 3 more years.

2. The clothes I store end up becoming stained. I've read tutorials on how to get rid of stains (especially on baby items), but I haven't been hugely successful.

3. I like dressing my kids in the current styles. I could keep all Matthias's clothes, but what if I didn't have another boy for 5 more years? I'm SURE the styles will have changed by then.

4. I honestly enjoy kids' clothes shopping. It's one of my favorite past-times! And yet, I don't want to lose money by getting rid of the clothes, either.

[To insure that I don't lose money during this buying-and-selling process, I rarely buy any kids' item for more than $5, because the majority of their clothing is second-hand or end-of-season clearance. Then, whenever they've grown out of those items, if they're still in decent shape, I sell them! I'm especially lucky when I buy my kids' clothes at yard sales for 25 or 50 cents, and then re-sell them for several dollars.]

Similar to what I described with the kids' books, I keep the "classics" from the kids' clothing--such as jeans or shoes... items that won't necessarily go out of style and probably won't get stained, either. I keep those items, sorted by size and gender, in bins in Matthias's closet.

And... I think that's about it!