Time for a little closet organization. This was a brilliant idea for our boys closet. It may not be a new idea to the rest of the world but for us it has been a life saver! The 3 older boys love to share a room together. But sharing a room means a TON of clothes all over the place if there is no damage control done. So here it is, My interpretation of DAMAGE CONTROL.
A long time ago I saw these little square canvas buckets at one of my favorite stores, Target. At the time I thought these were the perfect way to organize the 3 boys clothes. Besides the fact that we intentionally didn't buy them dressers for their rooms. I just remember when I was a little girl the funnest thing to do was to make my bottom drawer of my dresser into a baby cradle. I would fill it with pillows, blankets and baby dolls and when I got bored of that I would make it my cradle. My dresser was strong but not that strong. I loved my bottom drawer so much that it literally broke to pieces. And when the bottom one broke I just made the next logical move...on up to the next drawer. As you can guess that one broke too. And luckily my parents were okay with it since it was a hand me down dresser from my older sister and I was the youngest. So when it came time for the twins to have their own dressers I had to come up with a quick and brilliant back-up plan, hence Target. The canvas buckets worked for a while but it soon got to the point to where the clothes were put away but all mixed up into the wrong buckets and it took them forever to do it. So this wasn't organization at it's finest. I knew I needed a new way of doing things. So here goes... I wanted labels but I needed labels for the twins and Cooper. So they each have p.j.'s, socks, underware etc... The buckets with the 2 people on it are for the twins and the buckets with a single person on it means it's for Cooper and the buckets with 3 persons on it means it's for all 3 of them. Voila! I fold their laundry and put them into a laundry basket and they unload them in the canvas buckets and hang them up, finally on their own. It's great, they know exactly where everything goes without me having to hound them all the time. On the mommy scoreboard this was a win for me and for them. I rarely have good ideas but this one has worked even for 5 year old Cooper. There are times when it's time for Cooper to put his laundry basket full of clothes away and he is done in minutes and there are other times when it will seriously take him DAYS to get to his laundry basket. But their room is their room and they are responsible for it as well as the basement (since it basically is a huge play room). And that is a win for me being one step closer to not being the "Maid".
These are the steps they have made.
Step one: separate the socks from the shirts, pants and p.j.'s.
One day I asked them why they were making a mess and Elijah told me that they were organizing the clothes before they put them away. They said that it makes it easier. All I had to say to that was, "Oh". There are very few moments when they make me think that but they were right in their own way.
Step 2: One does the hanging and the other does the buckets. A long time ago I saw these little square canvas buckets at one of my favorite stores, Target. At the time I thought these were the perfect way to organize the 3 boys clothes. Besides the fact that we intentionally didn't buy them dressers for their rooms. I just remember when I was a little girl the funnest thing to do was to make my bottom drawer of my dresser into a baby cradle. I would fill it with pillows, blankets and baby dolls and when I got bored of that I would make it my cradle. My dresser was strong but not that strong. I loved my bottom drawer so much that it literally broke to pieces. And when the bottom one broke I just made the next logical move...on up to the next drawer. As you can guess that one broke too. And luckily my parents were okay with it since it was a hand me down dresser from my older sister and I was the youngest. So when it came time for the twins to have their own dressers I had to come up with a quick and brilliant back-up plan, hence Target. The canvas buckets worked for a while but it soon got to the point to where the clothes were put away but all mixed up into the wrong buckets and it took them forever to do it. So this wasn't organization at it's finest. I knew I needed a new way of doing things. So here goes... I wanted labels but I needed labels for the twins and Cooper. So they each have p.j.'s, socks, underware etc... The buckets with the 2 people on it are for the twins and the buckets with a single person on it means it's for Cooper and the buckets with 3 persons on it means it's for all 3 of them. Voila! I fold their laundry and put them into a laundry basket and they unload them in the canvas buckets and hang them up, finally on their own. It's great, they know exactly where everything goes without me having to hound them all the time. On the mommy scoreboard this was a win for me and for them. I rarely have good ideas but this one has worked even for 5 year old Cooper. There are times when it's time for Cooper to put his laundry basket full of clothes away and he is done in minutes and there are other times when it will seriously take him DAYS to get to his laundry basket. But their room is their room and they are responsible for it as well as the basement (since it basically is a huge play room). And that is a win for me being one step closer to not being the "Maid".
These are the steps they have made.
Step one: separate the socks from the shirts, pants and p.j.'s.
One day I asked them why they were making a mess and Elijah told me that they were organizing the clothes before they put them away. They said that it makes it easier. All I had to say to that was, "Oh". There are very few moments when they make me think that but they were right in their own way.
Again, they worked this one out themselves. If it works for them, it works for me.
And Coop does his mostly with a good attitude :)
That is AWESOME Steph!!
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