Rotating Seasonal Clothes

April 19, 2012 By 11 Comments

With the weather slowly changing from cool to warm, I have been busy rotating everyone’s clothes.  I’ve been doing it with the kids clothes for years, but only recently started doing it with my own.

This is what my closet looked like last fall.

I had clothes for all seasons crammed into my little closet.  I had thought about under the bed storage to get some things out, but our bed sits low and I had never found boxes that would work.

My solution?


Yes, a suitcase.  Not just any suitcase, but the big, striped monster.  The big, striped broken monster that we’ve brought back to the States many times with no intention of it ever returning.  And yet, in what has become a bad family joke, my husband’s parents seem to always find a way to send that monster back with visitors.  No more!  I’ve found a use for it! :)

In the fall I took out my summer clothes and put them into the suitcase.  I also put in any winter clothes that didn’t fit properly or that I hadn’t worn the previous winter.  If I went another winter without wanting those things, then I knew it was safe to get rid of them.  Last week I took that suitcase out, and realized that while I thought it was just a storage solution, it was really so much more!

  • I was able to return to each item I had put in the suitcase and make a decision:  Did I still want that item or not?  By physically touching each item to return it to the closet I had to think about each one.  It was so much more effective than just moving piles around my closet as the seasons changed.
  • I don’t need nearly as much as I had.  I’m sort of a “Plain Jane” kinda girl.  My mom used to call me “Plain Jane” as a kid because I always wanted a fairly simple wardrobe.  I was holding onto things that I might wear once a year just to say I was wearing it, but honestly, it’s the new, fresh t-shirts that I choose to wear throughout the summer, and well, just so you know how “Plain Jane” I really am, it’s the new, fresh long-sleeved t-shirts that I choose to wear through the cooler months.  I allowed myself to purge the faded, dingy, and “bally” shirts because I knew that I would want to freshen them up with low-cost replacements anyway.
After taking out the suitcase and rotating my clothes, I had a large trash bag full and ready to donate!  Not only that, but there are still several things in my suitcase that were in the “maybe” pile.  When I pull out the suitcase next November (yes, it stays warm that long here!) I’ll be able to touch each item again, and again make a decision about whether or not I need it.  I’m hoping that this is the end of a crammed closet and holding onto things that I don’t really wear!
Just look at how much space I have in the closet now!  It’s amazing!
Would you like to know some ideas for purging unwanted items?  Stacey shared a great list here.

Do you rotate your clothes with the seasons?  Have you got any tips to share how you do that?  We’d love to hear from you!

Project Simplify: Kids’ Stuff

March 9, 2012 By 6 Comments

Simple Mom is hosting a Spring Cleaning/Organization event this month called Project Simplify and this week’s project is kids’ stuff.  I didn’t tackle all of their stuff (clothes, toys, shoes, art supplies, books, etc.), but decided to focus on giving their rooms a good cleaning and going through the stuff in their closets.  Two challenges we are facing lately with their stuff are:

  1. They just have too much stuff (clothes and toys alike).
  2. I have given them too much access to all their stuff at a young age.
So, I wanted to purge where needed and get a better system for putting their things away.  With just a few days to work on this, I didn’t complete everything I want to do in there.  But I purged, organized, and got a better plan for where to go from here.  We’ll start with Karis’ and Landis’ room:
BEFORE
AFTER
I have small wire baskets under their bed that work pretty well.  They store different kinds of toys and the girls seem to do well with designated baskets like that.
BEFORE

The books look like this most of the time. I realize they are pretty young to set all the books upright. The bags on the wall are for their dress up time that they love and do often. I actually meant to hang that in the closet but just made a mistake in telling Dee where to put it. I want to move it, but don’t want to deal with patching holes in the wall.

AFTER

I’m thinking about a couple options for the books. I could either get baskets for the books to go in that would look a lot nicer. The other thing I’ve thought about doing is hanging shelves on the wall for baskets of books where they can only get down one basket of at a time.  What do you think would work best?

BEFORE
Their closet is always a wreck.  I’ve just had too much stuff in there.
AFTER
I moved all the stuffed animals to the twins’ room which really freed up that shelf.  I put the sleeping bag in its case and stored it under Karis’ bed.  I took all their dress up jewelry out of the jewelry box, put it all in the hanging shoe pocket organizer in the closet, and got rid of the jewelry box.  I kept the shelves for their dolls and the cute hooks on the wall for their dress up hats.  Have I mentioned they love to dress up?  I still need to hang the curtain I bought for the doorway.  Removing their closet door has been great for giving more space.
Now on to the twins’ room:
BEFORE
AFTER
I would like to put updated pictures in their room.  The ones on top of the chest of drawers are still of Karis as an infant!  I also need to get another lamp shade.  I got rid of the one we were using when I got rid of the crib bedding.
BEFORE
  AFTER
I have struggled with what to do with all the Mega blocks we have.  I made the simple decision today that whatever didn’t fit in one box needed to be given away.  I also set up the building table in the corner so they can actually use it.
BEFORE
I have never loved cabinets for clothes.  I just don’t do a good job of keeping them neat and it just ends up in a big messy pile.  I did make the decision to move all the kids’ pajamas into the drawers in the laundry roomthat I now use for sorting.  Since our kids are so young and we usually send Karis to get all the pajamas at night anyway, it doesn’t really make a difference where she gets them.

AFTER
I also moved all the off season clothes from this dresser to the chest of drawers and decided to use this dresser exclusively for toys and all stuffed animals.  We’ll see how this works and right now, I have two empty drawers to work with.
BEFORE
The twin’s closet is pretty big.  It reaches back pretty far on the right and left.  I use it for the twins’ hanging clothes and all off-season, off-size clothes and shoes for all the kids.  It obviously gets out of control.
AFTER
While I didn’t get everything done that I want (as in rearranging the adjustable shelving and purging off-season clothes), I did get a good assessment of what’s in there and got everything cleaned up.  And I got rid of the last of all those extra hangers!  It feels so much better to open those doors!
Do you have any other suggestions to better simplify and organize these spaces?  
Next week’s task on Project Simplify:  Kitchen and Pantry.  Stay tuned!

Michelle’s Organizational Challenge — Update 2

February 16, 2012 By 8 Comments
I’m organizing our playroom/homeschool room this month and trying to better utilize the space we have in the small room.  If you missed my first post, you can find it here.  Update #1 can be found here.
I’m thrilled that the second week of this challenge went much better than the first!  It took quite a while for me to get over the flu and have the energy to work in our playroom/schoolroom.
We changed this room over from a guest room to a playroom/schoolroom in November.  I put a little thought into where I put things at that point, but for the most part, things just ended up wherever they landed the first time.  This week my main priority was moving things so that the placement made sense — moving things I didn’t want the kids playing with up high, moving things out of the room that I didn’t want in the room, and moving some things around to make them more accessible for the kids.
Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie uses what she calls the PROCESS to get organized.  You can read the full details of it here.
Plan of Attack
Remove Items
Organize into Piles
Containerize
Evaluate Plan
Solve/Simplify any Remaining Issues
Smile, Relax, and Enjoy Your Hard Work!
I wrote about my plan of attack in this introduction post.  This week I especially focused on removing items, organizing into piles, and containerizing.  Because this is a room that gets used every day, I could not remove everything and start from scratch.  Instead it was one little space at a time.
Remember the shelf that I wanted to move into the boys’ room?  Well, I did it, and they couldn’t be happier!
This is the room before:
 And this is after:
The little green baskets in the bottom were sitting empty in the playroom, but are perfect for some of the boys’ smaller toys.
 Their trains and books that were previously in the playroom are now in their bedroom.  When Tobey came home from preschool and saw the changes, he came running, “Mommy, Mommy!  Come look!  There are books in our bedroom!”  Yes, he was happy with the change.
The next thing I needed to do was move things around on the shelves in the playroom/schoolroom.

  • I moved the plastic containers from one yellow shelf to the other.  They were somewhat hidden behind the desks and have barely been played with since we moved them into this room.  By moving those, I’m hoping they will be more accessible for the kids and again played with frequently.
  • I cut up all of the puzzle boxes and put them in ziplock baggies.  They are now all in the green basket.
  • I bought three new baskets to help organize the small stuff.
  • I still have a little work left on these.
  • I moved all of the coloring supplies from the small shelf that’s now in the boys room to the bottom of the shelf below.  Even though the kids purged a few coloring books, they still have too many.  They are in the blue baskets on the bottom shelf.
  • I moved the games from the top of the other shelf to a shelf of their own.  Now I don’t have to stand on a chair to get to them!
  • The top shelf is a lot of the books that I don’t want the kids reading just yet.
  • Since I moved the small shelf out, we now have just enough wall space for the dry erase board.  I just need to get it hung.
The last thing I accomplished this week was organizing the supply closet.  This is what it looked like before.  Ugh…
  •  I took 3 of the 4 bins out and organized the contents.  The first bin contains art projects, the middle bin is really just random stuff that gets used but not often, and the third bin contains craft supplies.  The fourth bin was already organized with math manipulatives for homeschooling.  Some of this stuff was scattered in various places in the closet.  This is a huge improvement, and I found things I had forgotten I had bought!
This is the closet now.  Much improved!
As for purging, this is one of the two bags of trash that got tossed this week:

I’m very happy with the progress I made this week.  Come back next week to see what else I’m planning to do in this room!

Are you taking part in Orgjunkie’s Organizational Challenge this month?  Leave a comment and we’ll be sure to check out your progress?

Organizing Clothes in a Child’s Closet

December 30, 2011 By 8 Comments

A couple of years ago I first heard of the idea of using a hanging shelf to store children’s clothing in their closet.  Stacey actually mentioned the idea of doing that on her post Getting Out the Door in Less Time.  It was that post that finally inspired me to email Stacey and talk about writing together at Getting Through the Day.  I’m so thankful that I did ask her!  As we generate post ideas and talk about possibilities for future posts, I find myself growing in areas that I’ve been stagnant in for a while.  Thanks Stacey for allowing me to share this little space in blog land with you!

Some time after hearing about using hanging shelves in kids closets, I decided to give it a try.  I started with the girls.  At the time I could not find a 7 shelf hanging organizer (one for each day of the week), so they have a 6 shelf organizer.

You can see that they have a very small closet.  If they had tons of clothes this may not work with such a small closet.  There’s a little hanging space for their dresses, and they stock panties, socks, tights, etc. in the drawers below.  I have changed the way I do this with the girls a couple of times.

  • When I first started this with the girls, they would help me pick either tops or bottoms, one for each shelf.  I would pick a matching top or bottom, they’d add panties and socks, and then stock their organizer for the week.  We’d always restock on Sunday evenings, and starting on Monday they’d take out outfits from top to bottom.
  • Now I usually just stock them myself as I finish laundry and the girls pull out any outfit and wear it.
After seeing that this was working well for the girls, I decided to do the same thing in the boys’ closet.
Thanks to the amazing Chinese Taobao (a site in China that sells pretty much ANYTHING I could want), I was able to find 7 shelf organizers for the boys.  Each shelf is more compact which also leaves some space at the bottom for extras.  They also have a little hanging space for nice shirts and keep their undies and socks in the bottom drawers, one for each boy.
There are three things I absolutely love about using these hanging organizers for the kids!
  • There is no thinking about what to wear in the morning.  Within about 10 seconds they decide on an an outfit, pull it out, and start getting dressed.
  • As I finish laundry, I’m able to simply restock the empty shelves.  It’s fast and easy!
  • Do you see all of those extra pants for the boys in the picture?  Yes, I overbought.  Since using the shelves, I have come to realize that I don’t need more than 8 or 9 complete outfits for the kids — 7 for normal days, 1 or two for nicer clothes or an extra set “just in case”.  Truly, anything more is excess, and honestly, if I didn’t like a little variety, I could probably get away with 4 or 5 total outfits per child with the frequency I do laundry.  I have never shopped this way until now.  As I start buying ahead for next winter this clearance season, I’m looking to buy in outfits to avoid pieces that don’t match anything and to stick to 7-9 total outfits per child.  As I look at the excess in the kids’ drawers this winter, I realize that we have far more than we need.
If you are interested in doing something like this in your child’s closet, Amazon has lots of options.
They have 5 shelf options…
…6 shelf options…
…8 shelf options…
…cute kiddie options, and Hanging Organizers""“>much more!
For this stage with the kids, this has been such a time saver and hopefully a money saver for us as well!
What do you do to help keep your children’s clothes organized and to make sure you are not buying more than you need?
Today’s post is linked up to I’m an Organizating Junkie‘s 52 Weeks of Organizing.

Maximizing Space with Vertical Storage Part 2, Kids Rooms

December 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Before I get started on this post, just a little update about Mommy’s Day Off.  It was truly refreshing to get away from normal life for a night.  I think getting out of town was a big part of it, and then of course retail therapy at Ikea just may have had something to do with it!  I was able to get lots of odds and ends for the house, some things I wanted, some things we needed, and even a couple of little splurges.  I called my husband in tears after buying new dinnerware only to find that they wouldn’t ship it because it was breakable.  I returned it before I even walked out the door. :-(  And just in case you are wondering what I decided, I decided to go with the cheapest Ikea option.  I know we are going to have broken pieces with 4 little ones.  In a few years we can replace it again with something a little nicer and know that we didn’t spend a lot the first time around.  We may be driving to our consulate in a month or so, and if we do there’s an Ikea conveniently located next door to it.  Hopefully it will work out next time.
And now, on to the real post…
If you missed part 1 of this post, you can find it here.  I take you through much of the house showing you how we use vertical space to increase storage.  My inspiration for writing these posts was this post about going vertical at Orgjunkie.com.
Our kids have small bedrooms.  The boys bedroom is VERY small.  I’ve never measured it, but I’m guessing about 8ft x 9ft.  We struggled for a long time trying to make the room work for 2 boys with different sleep patterns.

We had a few different bed arrangements before getting the bunk beds.  The bottom bed is a queen sized bed, so we had both boys sleep there for a while.  Kai loves to sleep.  Tobey doesn’t.  The result of that sleeping arrangement was that Tobey would harass Kai multiple times throughout the night.  Plan B — We had Kai with the girls for a while, but he and Eden thought it was a great idea to start each day at about 5:30am.  Plan C — We had Kai in our old guest room for a while, but we really wanted to convert that space to a playroom.  We just weren’t sure what to do, but knew that we had enough beds for the boys, just not a good solution.  Plan D — The mosquito net tent.  Tobey didn’t like the confinement of it, but Kai did.  Kai now sleeps on the top bunk lockedinside of the tent.  There is no way that he can get out without our assistance.  Our problem was solved.  This is vertical “storage” in its most creative form (at least in our house).

The boys didn’t have a space for toys.  We had a shelf in the room, but it was too big for the small space, so every time I needed to open the closet, I had to move the shelf.  Finally, we decided to take off the doors to that closet.  We also had shelves installed in order to maximize the vertical space.  The drawer and bottom two shelves are room toys.  The top two shelves are out of season clothing.  I’m saving their actual closet for a post of it’s own, so come back soon for that one.

We don’t have a coat closet or anywhere near the front door to keep coats.  I put up a few low hooks so that the boys could hang their coats in their room when they get home.

This is their dresser and a cute little boy.  :-)  Some of their clothes are in the dresser.  The rest are in the closet.

And here’s another cutie!

This gives a good perspective of their whole room.  Without using the vertical space with beds and the closets, we could not make this small space work for 2 boys, their clothes, and their toys.

The girls also have a small room and bunk beds.  Their room is a little bigger than the boys, probably about 8ft x 10ft.  Instead of a dresser we opted for drawers under their bed.  We were also happy to discover that the space behind the drawers was “dead” space, so we’ve been able to use that for extra storage of things we don’t use often.

They have a hamper for dolls and stuffed animals and a little shelf for some other toys.  We’ve had this shelf since Vera was a toddler and our only little munchkin.

Again, we took the doors off of their closet, and again the bottom 2 shelves are toys and the top 2 are out of season clothes.  Our bathrooms do not have much storage at all, so the closet space all the way to the right serves as a linen closet.  Again, these were totally empty closets that we installed shelves in so that we could maximize the vertical space.

Just like the boys, the girls also have low hooks in their room for their bags and coats.

We have moved entire rooms, changed sleeping arrangements, and repurposed and bought new furniture to make things work for our family in the space that we live in.  We’ve gone from 1 child to 4 since moving to this apartment.  Organizing the kids rooms to make them functional has been a constant work in progress, and honestly, I’m sure I’ll change something again in the not so distant future.  We have had to maximize and use every bit of space in the kids rooms to make them work.  As most of our readers don’t live in China, I know your home and the cabinets/closets in it are very different from mine, but hopefully these pictures  have given you some inspiration as you try to find creative storage and organization solutions in your home.

I’d love to hear some things that you’ve done in your home to maximize your space.  If you have a post on your blog, then feel free to leave a link in the comments for us and our readers.

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