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.
- 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.
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Michelle, I love this idea! We’d like to get the boys to the point of dressing themselves without assistance, so this might be really helpful. I’m going to think about how to implement it in our house.
How old are your boys? This has been such a huge help for our boys!
Been thinking more about this idea…Once in a while my kids are lucky enough to get through the day without dripping food all over their clothes. What do you do with clothes they’ve worn but are still clean enough to be worn again? Especially with pants, which could last two or three days sometimes. Do they really need 7 pairs of pants when you could wear one pair more than once? Then how would this system work? We currently have a few hooks that they can hang those kinds of clothes on, but with this system would they just have to put it back in a cubby shelf with a matching shirt at night when they take it off?
Your kids are lucky enough to make it through the day with still semi-clean clothes? Gosh, just between 3 meals a day, school, play, and China, I wash everything. I’m a bit anal about the kids being clean, though. On the rare occasion that they actually still wear the same clothes, I just put them back in on an empty shelf. If it’s just jeans, I’d put a clean shirt, undies, and socks with it.
As for how many, we could get by with 4 outfits. I cannot go any longer than 3 days without doing laundry or else it’s a mountain. I just like a little variety, so I shoot for a week’s worth of clothes for each of the kids. Hope this helps!
My boys are 5 1/2 and 4, both in local preschool all day. You’re right, most days everything goes in the dirty clothes hamper! This summer when it was so hot we did a lot inside, but I’ve been taking them out to run and play more consistently every afternoon after school, so they are getting dirtier lately. Do you remember what Taobao site you found your 7 slot hangars on? I couldn’t find one for less than 300rmb when I looked. If not, I happen to live next door to IKEA here in Shanghai, so I can get 9 slot shelves and just let the extras bunch up at the bottom (they’re too long).
I checked the link I bought them through and the seller is no longer there. Searching by model number also brought up nothing. I wish they were, because the quality of them was fantastic. If I were you, I’d go with 6 shelf organizers rather than 9. The girls have one with 6 shelves, so we just set an extra set of clothes on top of it if we need to. It would definitely be more compact and there are tons of options for 6 shelves on Taobao. Good luck finding one that will work for you!
Thanks, Michelle. I just ordered 2 6-shelf sets on taobao so we’ll see how the set-up works for us!