As our boys grow, I find the need to reorganize their belongings, namely, their closet.  With Ev out growing clothes at a rapid rate, I need access to larger sized clothes without the hassle of digging them out of storage.  Without a dresser in the room, I have to get creative with their storage.  When we last shared our closets, I had it organize, keeping larger clothes on the shelf in a clear covered bin, but it became cumbersome for me (being 5 feet, 4 inches tall) to get large, heavy bins down often.  We needed a change.

Here was Vincent’s side.  All of his current sized clothes are hanging, larger clothes in the big bin on top, diapers in the small bins in the cubes, and socks in a bin.

Here’s Everett’s side.

Everett’s side was pretty much the same story.  After a while, I started hating that I had to slide the doors to get to their stuff.  As I mentioned above, the large bins were really becoming a hassle, too.

What was our solution?  Ben installed a second closet rod.  We didn’t move anything around, so the rods are close together, but they’re boys.  They don’t have anything that really hangs down, so it’s fine for a while.  By installing a second bar, we can hang both boys current clothes on one side, eliminating the constant sliding of doors.

Another benefit, we now have room to hang larger clothing on the other side of the closet.

We still use a laundry bag to save shelf space.  A small hook holds it securely and out-of-the-way.

As for the storage cubes, we keep our baby wipes (which we buy in bulk from Costco when we have a coupon), bedding, Everett’s socks, and one bin of diapers for each boy, rather than all their diapers.  The clear bins on top of the cubes have Vincent’s socks and underwear and the yellow bin has pajamas.  I love those yellow bins because they fold flat when not in use, saving space.

We still have a large bin of clothes, but we don’t need to access it often.  We also have shoes, puzzles and a bag of other random items that I still have to sort through.

Where did all the diapers go?  On the top shelf of the right side.  The yellow bin is our donate box.  Anything that I decide our boys no longer need, I put in the bin until it gets full.  The next time I go to a thrift store, the contents get donated.

Previously, we had a plastic baby bath tub.  Everett has since outgrown it, so I donated that, too, which freed up a lot of valuable space.  Now we have a box in its place.  Whenever one of the boys outgrows something, I put it in that box.  When that box is full, I sort the clothes into the proper bin in our basement.

By adding a second closet rod, we’ve doubled our storage space and we have plenty of room to expand.  Score!  Do you have any storage tips, tricks or products you can’t live without?  What do you do with outgrown children’s clothes?  Do you hang your kid’s clothes or prefer to fold?  If you hang, do you use the size dividers?