If you know me at all beyond this blog, you know I am a purger.  I don’t keep junk. I am constantly cleaning out, selling, and giving away.  I think it all began in our last house when our closet space was crazy limited and we began having kids (AKA acquiring lots and lots of stuff).  🙂

Around this time every year, I always feel an itch to clean out.  Then I can reorganize and set up a system that works to keep it that way.  There are three spots I’ve worked on and, at the moment, have a decent system going on to address some of the recent nagging challenges in the Douglas home.

WINTER COATS

When I redid the laundry and mudroom (you can find all of the details here in this post) I put in a wall of bead board and hooks.  LOTS OF HOOKS in hopes that it would control our winter craziness.  In the past, the kids (and Jason and maybe even me from time to time) came in, took off coats, and had nowhere to put them.  There is a coat closet on the other side of the house, but let’s just admit the coats would NEVER MAKE IT THERE.  Can I get an amen.  So they just got dropped.  On the laundry machine.  On the floor.  In the garage.  Everywhere.  I can’t function like that.  So I added hooks here and it really has worked like a dream. The winter of 2018 was my best battle against the coats to date.  The kids each have a set of hooks. So do the adult kids.  They come right in and hang up their stuff.

P.S. It helps a ton in the summertime too.  Hats, pool bags, soccer bags, and rain jackets fill those hooks right up!

MASTER BEDROOM CLOSET

Our closet was pretty large, but everything was really spread out and putting away laundry was a big hassle. We had an old dresser and an old shelving unit pushed into the back corners of the closet.  It was all fine, but just wasn’t working great.  And let’s be honest, I spend WAY too much time putting away laundry in this closet, so it needed a fix.  We ended up moving around some hanging clothes racks to empty an entire wall. Then I added 3 sets of these awesome wire drawers (correction: my dad actually installed these, not me) with new wire shelves all the way up the wall.  This all added enough storage that we were able to get rid of the dresser.

It’s been really nice to have all the folded clothing on one wall. The drawers give great easy access to things like socks, underwear/undershirts, pajamas, and exercise wear.  Then the shelves above have our folded clothing (t-shirts, jeans, shorts).

Quick disclaimer: This is not fancy.  It’s not a custom built-in closet system.  But it is FUNCTIONAL!

SHOE STORAGE

Who else has out of control shoe issues?  Tell me I’m not alone!  You walk through your house and find them EVERYWHERE.  In a last ditch effort to try to help with this, I added what has miraculously been some pretty useful shoe storage in two spots in the house.

First, in the laundry and mudroom.  Again, our drop zone when we come in the house.  I added some single shelves on brackets in the lower cabinets for the kids to store shoes and socks.  Each of them has a cabinet designated for them and a bin of fresh socks.  It really helps to have somewhere to drop shoes right when we come in the house.

The other spot is for the grown-ups’ shoes.  We call this “our” shoe closet, but let’s be real… it’s Jason’s shoe closet and he lets me put my few pairs in here too 🙂  I built some shelves for our shoes early this spring and it has made such a big difference in the closet.  I put wood braces on the left, right, and back wall.  Then added shelves on top.  Works like a charm.  And holds a TON of shoes.  And now the closet has tons of extra room in the back and the other side.

Also, please pay attention to the numbers of boots and sneakers.  He is proud and is excited about that open space you see on one shelf.  I am embarrassed.  🙂

Before I close, people always ask if it is always this neat.  Ha.  Truthfully, mostly, yes.  Putting these systems in place has helped so much and the only place where we sometimes still have a problem is the kids’ shoe cabinets.  And that’s because even though the shoes always make it IN, they don’t always make it in NEATLY. But I will settle for the progress!

Doing any spring cleaning or organizing in your home? What’s working for you?!