I live in a very small apartment, and my two kids are in one room. I’m due in a couple of months and I wanted to start organizing the closets. I don’t even have room for a dresser in there. It’s a single twin bed for my older child, and I have a space for a crib for my toddler.
My plan is that when the baby is big enough to move into the kids room, the baby will sleep in the crib, my two other kids will have a bunkbed
I hate Apartment living😭
Anyway, please ignore how their closets look right now, I am six months pregnant and always tired🤣 I have these closets from IKEA with sliding doors. In picture number two, my top shelf are for my Wigs, my second shelf if I have some towels, the basket some of their swim stuff, and some baby onesies that I started to clean.
The middle shelf is my eldest stuff- I have skirts, tops and sweaters folded. The shelf under is my toddler, same set up. The bottom shelf is empty for the most part. The pullout drawer is for my eldest one’s pajamas.
In picture number one, I have their dresses hanging, the top shelf I put toilet paper and some costumes, on the bottom shelf is now clean and empty(this picture was taken a few days ago).
I have to figure out where I’m going to be putting all my baby stuff, onesies, and diapers
I'd add some baskets or boxes so each category of items has its own place. I think the main problem is that everything gets mixed together. This way, it'll look organized from the outside, even if the clothes inside aren't folded into perfect piles.
Something like this, but more kid-friendly. You could do fabric or wicker baskets, or plastic, whatever you like and your budget allows for. You could label the baskets with words, or little images. By category, or by the kid's names (different colour baskets/bins for each kid maybe?). It will make it much easier to keep it organised, no need to fold, just chuck all t shirts in one basket and pants in another. And it will still look neat from the outside, like the other commenter said
See that white bin on that shelf? You need a bunch of those. Fill up those shelves with them. Maybe a different color for each kid, and then go to YouTube and figure out the Mari Kondo way to fold T-shirts. You can put them in those bins, and, the way they're folded, the sign part is on top, showing, and the full depart is down, sort of like the spine of a book sticking up in the book being down in the thing on the edge that's the edge of the pages. Kids can pull out a bin, grab the shirt they want, and put the bin back. Are there socks and underwear and drawers? I hope so! Shoe rack on the back of the bedroom door. You can put underwear and socks in shoe racks, as well!
Great ideas
I have two shoe racks in the bottom (don’t think you can see from the pic) that’s just for their shoes
The pull out drawers have their pjs and undergarments and socks. So in pic 1 that drawer is for one kid and pic 2 the drawer is for my other child
I third baskets or bins, labeled by person. That way Oldest can have socks, underwear and tee shirts in a basket together, but they are all just that kids clothes.
The nice thing about these pieces being IKEA is they will have bins that fit perfectly :)
You definitely need one of those gizmos that hooks to the closet rod, but hangs down about halfway between it and the bottom of the closet, and provides another horizontal rod on which to hang things! You need more hanging space! Also: get some of those hangers that can hold several items each, sort of layered partly on top of each other.
You want to absolutely maximise storage space. Do their beds have underneath storage? Maybe you're able to add some hanging storage in the room somewhere?
Yes under the twin bed there’s storage space so I keep the other sets of linen and old baby stuff/things they outgrew. I only open it once a week to get new linen out when I change the bed.
I don’t have any hanging space, I really should show you guys a pic of the room it’s so tiny and no space at all
With another kiddo coming, I'd prioritize making the older two kids stuff something they can reach for themselves as much as possible. Is it possible for you to reduce the height of the clothing rail in the first photo so it's more in arm's reach for them? (I'm imagining they are young enough to be shorter than you, based on the length of their clothing.) Then you may have room to insert another shelf above the clothing rail in that first photo. You can put out of season stuff on that top shelf, or baby stuff that only you will need to reach for the near term.
I'd move the toddler's clothing to the bottom shelf (in bins) so the toddler can reach their own as they start moving toward preschool age. And the oldest to the second shelf. Then put the baby stuff on the third shelf so it's more eye height for you. Easier for you to look into it and grab while with a baby on your hip, etc...
I agree with the comments about getting baskets/bins to contain each person's clothing and to be able to have categories (e.g. tops vs bottoms vs undergarments) that hold together on each person's shelf.
Oo cool ideas ty!
I was thinking to put another hanging rod by the dress section and have more hanging space but then I lose that empty space under the dresses and I was going to go this week to get bins …
I don’t let my kids get dressed on their own because they would make a mess so they usually tell me what they want to wear and I pull it off for them and they get dressed themselves
Next year my eldest will be in uniform so it will clear up a lot of space
Is it possible to move the closet rod upward? Many years ago, I had a similar situation, and found an extra closet rod that hung down from the main one from hooks. That way, you could have a high level of hanging clothes, and a lower level. Since your kids are young, and their clothes are short, that might be helpful.
Looks examples of closets laid out with ventilated shelving. It's very common to double up the rows of hanging stuff with that.
If you can't find one of the devices that hangs over the existing rod to create a second rod, you could do it with some S hooks, PVC pipe and chain. Plastic chain.
Measure from the top of the existing rod down to where you want the secondary rod to hang, double that number, and add the length / width of the PVC pipe parentheses as why is the entire shelving unit) drop the plastic chain through the PVC pipe, and then put Anais hook in each end of the chain and attach that to the existing rod.
We'll probably have to hang the new baby's clothes from the top rod so you can hike the lower rod up as much as you need for the shape. If you're hanging pants, pull them in half and hang them over the horizontal section of the hanger, and not on pants hangers.
If you need them to be even a little shorter, get some of that tubular pipe insulation from Home Depot or Loaves, and pump that over that horizontal piece of the hanger. When you hang your pants over that, that will take up some space and make them hang down a little bit less. Not much, but a little bit, which may be all you need.
Do you have links or a pic so I know what to look for? I don’t live in a place where Amazon deliveries, so it has to be from somewhere like IKEA or Temu
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u/sheep_3 1d ago
Baskets! Preferably each person is assigned their own color basket