Here is the before:
Those blue bins store the kids hats, gloves, and scarves. They take up way too much room and you have to dig around to find what you're looking for.
My first thought was to store the winter gear in the hall tree in our foyer.
It currently housed miscellaneous toys so I cleared those out and vacuumed out the inside.
Then I just used some pieces of cardboard cut to the right length to make dividers, one for the Spencinator, one for Sweetie Pie, and one for the Babes.
It was at this point, I realized this idea wasn't going to work. The Babes had already gotten inside and tried on her hat. If I tried to use this as hat and glove storage, she'd have a blast taking out all the items and trying them back on. Not my idea of organized.
On to plan B.
I went to Walmart and got an over the door shoe organizer for $5.97.
Now, it would have been great if I could have done something like Kristen did below (details found HERE), but it wouldn't work on the bifold laundry closet doors.
Or on our foyer closet doors since the shoe organizer is 19 inches wide, and our closet doors in the foyer are just under 18 inches wide. So I decided to hang this organizer in the laundry room closet.
Here is the before with the blue bins of winter gear taken out. See how much space they took up.
If I push everything to one side, it opens up the area on the right and that's where I'll hang the shoe organizer.
First I hung up the organizer and marked where I'd need to put the screws.
Then I hammered in some wall anchors because there weren't any studs in that area and I wanted to make sure it was secure and wouldn't come falling down if the kids pulled too hard while trying to get their gloves in or out.
Then came the fun part of putting all their winter gear in each of the pockets. Yes, I did say that was fun. I do like to organize, especially when it is as easy as this. The Babes even helped me while trying on a few things.
And then I hung it up. I love it already. So much easier to see what is stored and it takes up a lot less room.
I've got Kevin's hats and gloves on top, the Spencinator's are in the next two rows, then two rows for our Sweetie Pie and the bottom row is for the Babes. Yeah, I know there is no room for my stuff, but that's OK. I have it stored in a box on the top shelf.
I'm not done with this closet yet. Next I'm off to tackle the kids shoe storage problem. Here are some shoes stored in the closet.
More shoes stored on a shoe file hanging in the same closet.
And even more shoes stored in a basket in the laundry room. And these are just shoes for the two older kids. I know they have way to many shoes. We've already started pairing down. I just like to keep all of their shoes in one place and close to the exit/entrance since we take our shoes off when we get in the house.
Any one else organizing their winter gear? Or coming up with a better shoe storage solution?
I hope to get the shoes organized this week and I'll be back to show you what I did.
