28 Days to Love Your Home – Day 18

Organizing Tips to Love Your Home

Day 18

This month as we love on our homes, we can’t ignore our dreaded rooms…especially our children’s rooms.  The little girl in this picture cracks me up.  She looks guilty, overwhelmed and innocent all in one expression!  I think this is so true of our kids as they try to navigate cleaning up their rooms.  Getting your kids involved in the cleaning and organizing is not as hard as you think!  Don’t get me wrong.  This is not a Barney TV show with all the kids happily singing and cleaning as they go.  This is a way to take the overwhelm out of the dreaded clean!

Today we will tackle the clothes.  Children are so small yet we seem to think they need more clothes than a fashion model!  So how much is too much?  That answer varies from family to family.  I like to break it down to:

• How often do you do laundry?
• What activities do they participate in?  How often?
• Are they really dirty kids?  (I have one that is cleaner than the other…the younger one!)
• Do they wear uniforms?

Depending on how you answer these questions, you can guesstimate how much they actually need.  From socks and underwear to t-shirts and jeans, really think about how much they truly need.  Also, for special occasion outfits, how many do you really need?  My kids get dressed up honestly about 2 times a year!  We go to a casual church and love to eat at casual restaurants – so for school functions and random special events, we don’t need to hold onto dressy outfits!  I know dressing two boys is not the same as two girls, but think before you give into your fashion divas clothing demands!

After you get a good idea of what you need, your next step is to see what you have actually fits and that they like it!  We need to realize what we like and what our children like can be very different!  We need to let our children have a say in what they want to keep.  That is not to say we let our little girls wear mini skirts and midriff bearing shirts, but with guidelines we want to give our children fashion freedom!  Do think, our kids tend to gravitate toward the same clothes over and over again, so why hold onto something they just won’t wear (or at least won’t wear without a wrestling match to get it on them!)

Once you weed out to what you need and what fits and what they will wear, it is time to put it away.  This is easier than you think.  Every room is different.  You may have loads of hanging space and little dresser space or vice versa.  Or, you may have little of both!  No matter what you have, there are storage solutions to fit your needs.  But you can buy a thousand products to solve your storage dilemmas and nothing will change if you don’t purge first!!!

I like to store anything in a drawer standing up.  Think about when you put clothes away in a drawer.  If you stack clothes on top of each other, you wear what is on top and rarely wear what is underneath!  Also, if you want to wear something that is toward the bottom of the stack you mess up the stack trying to get the what you want out.  To store standing upright, you need to fold a little differently.  It usually takes one additional fold to fit the depths of a dresser drawer.  You will be putting one behind another.  In this case you will see what you have in the drawer!  Your kids will love to see what they have!  It is easier to keep the drawer organized and clean!  They won’t be on a scavenger hunt every time they go to get dressed!  (Look at the last photo in this post to see what I mean.  The socks are lined up instead of stacked up.)

For hanging clothes, keep things easy for the children to hang.  For younger children, a second bar in the closet helps utilize the wasted space (did you know kids clothes are much smaller than ours?!?).  Young children can hang up clothes on their own, so make it easy for them to help!  (Yes, 4 year olds can hang up their own clothes if taught how!)  I know some kids who will change themselves seven times a day if they have access to their clothes, but this may change if they are responsible for hanging the clothes back up!!!

Make categories of clothing.  For drawers, keep separate spaces for underwear, socks, shorts, pants, pj’s, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, etc.  The same for hanging clothes.  Group and separate shorts, pants, skirts, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, etc.  Not only is it easier to get your kids to help put things away in order, but it will be easier for your kids to get dressed!  Who doesn’t want to save some time in the morning when getting the kids ready!  I like these drawer dividers to keep the clothing from migrating around the drawer!  

Asking your kids their opinion on how and where things are stored is one of the most helpful way to get them to keep up their rooms themselves.  Ask them how they want to categorize their clothing.  Ask them where they want to keep it.  Their opinion matters!

What do you do to keep your kids clothes under control?  Do they help keep up their rooms by putting away their own laundry?  Do you have a fashion diva that needs an intervention?  Share with us your tips and troubles!!!